In brief
- Abra will list on Nasdaq as ABRX via a $750 million SPAC deal with New Providence Acquisition Corp. III.
- The firm targets over $10 billion in AUM by 2027, pitching itself as the first publicly traded SEC-registered digital asset RIA.
- Abra has faced multiple regulatory actions, including SEC and CFTC fines and an $82 million multi-state settlement.
Abra Financial Holdings, the San Francisco-based digital asset wealth management platform, said Monday it will go public through a business combination with New Providence Acquisition Corp. III, a special purpose acquisition company trading on Nasdaq under the ticker NPACU.
The combined company is expected to list on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol ABRX, the company said in a press release.
The transaction values Abra at $750 million on a pre-money basis. The firm’s existing investors, including Adams Street, Blockchain Capital, Pantera Capital, RRE Ventures, and SBI, will roll 100% of their stakes into the combined entity.
New Providence’s trust holds up to $300 million in cash, subject to shareholder redemptions, which would serve as growth capital for the combined company.
Abra is positioning itself as the first publicly traded company with an SEC-registered investment advisor focused on digital asset wealth management, offering services including custody, trading, yield strategies, and collateralized lending. The company is targeting over $10 billion in assets under management by the end of 2027.
“Our aim is to bring institutional-grade on-chain crypto wealth management products to investors worldwide within a regulated and transparent framework,” Abra CEO Bill Barhydt said in the press release.
The announcement, however, comes against a backdrop of repeated run-ins with federal and state regulators.
In July 2020, both the SEC and the CFTC took action against Abra. The SEC charged the company with offering and selling unregistered security-based swaps to retail investors, and the CFTC found it had entered into illegal off-exchange swaps in digital assets and foreign currency. The firm paid $300,000 in combined fines—$150,000 to each agency—in 2024 to settle the charges.
Then, in August 2024, the SEC filed now-settled charges against Abra’s subsidiary Plutus Lending LLC for failing to register its retail crypto lending product, Abra Earn, and for operating as an unregistered investment company for at least two years. At its peak, the Abra Earn program held approximately $600 million in assets, with nearly $500 million coming from U.S. investors.
Separately, the San Francisco-based firm agreed in June 2024 to repay customers $82 million in crypto as part of a settlement with 25 states for operating without a license. The Texas State Securities Board also filed an enforcement action against Abra and its CEO regarding Abra Earn for alleged securities fraud in 2023.
In response to the SEC settlement, Abra stated that no consumers were harmed and that all assets for U.S. Earn customers, including accrued interest, were transferred to their Abra Trade accounts in 2023.
At the time of writing, NPACU, the shell company taking Abra public, has gained 0.91% since the opening bell in New York and was trading for $10.51 per share.
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