Novogratz's Galaxy Digital Will Start Trading on a Stock Exchange This Week

Cryptocurrency merchant bank Galaxy Digital is set to trade on Toronto's TSX Venture Exchange on August 1, Bloomberg reported Monday.

The cryptocurrency merchant bank, which was first announced in January, received final approval from Canadian regulators to begin trading, founder and billionaire investor Michael Novogratz told BNN Bloomberg Toronto.

He called the process to receive permission "Frustrating," citing the time it took to receive this approval.

Galaxy Digital lost $134 million in the first quarter of 2018, largely due to declining cryptocurrency prices, the company announced in a quarterly earnings report last week, as CoinDesk previously reported.

The lengthy listing time came from the fact that Galaxy Digital chose to undergo a reverse takeover by merging with a TSX-listed shell company.

Regulators examined the deal closely, going so far as to push back the final approval for listing from April to August, according to Bloomberg.

That being said, Novogratz believes cryptocurrency prices will rebound, predicting that bitcoin's price might soon see $10,000 again.

Investors need more tools to trust the space before the price can go beyond $10,000, he said, explaining that "a lot of retailer investors got caught by bad prices last November and December."

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around the $8,000 mark, according to CoinDesk's Bitcoin Price Index.

CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.