Founded back in 2011, Blockchain.com recently closed a Series D funding round in March at a valuation of $14 billion, making the crypto company both one of the longest-operating exchanges as well as one of the highest valued in the industry.

After spending effectively “zero” on marketing for over a decade, Blockchain.com recently announced a sponsorship deal with the Dallas Cowboys, becoming the first crypto company to ink a deal with an NFL team approved by the league.

In this episode of The Scoop, Peter Smith, CEO of Blockchain.com, discusses his company’s upcoming strategy, including IPO rumors and the rationale behind their Cowboys partnership.

As he explains during the interview, Smith wants “to work with the biggest and the best,” making the Cowboys the ideal choice for Blockchain.com’s first sports partnership:

“When you really study these marketing deals, you're basically looking for who has the biggest fan base, the demographics of the fan base, and then the TV side of it,” Smith said. “We really wanted to work with them because of the fan base and the TV exposure.”

Blockchain.com was also in the news in April, when a Bloomberg report circulated suggesting the company is planning an IPO for some time this year. However, when asked about the report, Smith commented that it must have been “a slow news day at Bloomberg.”

While Smith believes Blockchain.com “will be a public company someday – and probably sooner than later,” he clarified: “We haven't done anything in the last 60 days that's different than what we've been doing for the last nine months preparing to someday be a public company.”

Episode 39 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Peter Smith, CEO of Blockchain.com

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to [email protected].

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime

Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River

Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.