Kraken's SPAC Could Target a Crypto Firm Worth Up to $10B

KRAKacquisition Corp, the blank-check SPAC sponsored by a Kraken affiliate, is hunting an acquisition target that could be worth anywhere from $2 billion to $10 billion — a range so wide it tells you more about how open-ended the mandate is than any specific strategy. Director Ravi Tanuku confirmed the search is live, with no target identified yet.

What Is KRAKacquisition Targeting?

The KRAKacquisition $345 million offering closed on Nasdaq in January 2026, launching a two-year clock to find and merge with a private company. Tanuku was upfront that the $10 billion valuation ceiling is an approximation — the actual deal could land closer to $2 billion. The firm's stated focus covers crypto-related companies, but also stablecoins, DeFi protocols, and payments businesses. "It's not easy to take a company in that smaller market cap range public anymore," Tanuku said in a statement, framing the SPAC as a fast-track alternative for mid-cap firms that can't easily access traditional IPO markets.

Wall Street's appetite for stablecoins and tokenization companies has reached what Tanuku called new heights. "The market is clearly paying up for those and starting to realize there's big changes afoot," he said. Stanley Druckenmiller amplified that signal in a recent Morgan Stanley interview — the billionaire investor called stablecoins "incredibly useful" and said he expects the entire payments system to run on stablecoin rails within 10 to 15 years.

We're looking at things that are related to crypto, but also things related to stablecoins, DeFi, and all kinds of areas in payments.

Does the Kraken IPO Make This More Interesting?

The SPAC doesn't exist in a vacuum. Kraken confidentially filed a Kraken IPO draft registration with the SEC in November 2025, just after closing an $800 million fundraising round that valued the exchange at $20 billion. A Kraken-affiliated acquisition vehicle hunting stablecoin and DeFi targets while Kraken itself moves toward a public listing — that's a coordinated play, not a coincidence.

Tanuku described KRAKacquisition Corp as a strategic tool that could economically align a target company with Kraken through a meaningful ownership stake. The exchange is putting its brand behind it — which isn't a casual decision. KRAKacquisition's own registration statement cites the declining purchasing power of the U.S. dollar as a driver that has strengthened Bitcoin's case as a hard asset hedge, setting the ideological tone for whatever deal eventually gets done.