Argo Blockchain surged on Wednesday after the London-listed bitcoin (BTC) miner announced its intention to list in the United States. 

The company stated that it had submitted a confidential draft registration statement to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a proposed dual-listing and initial public offering (IPO).

The firm will raise funds from US investors by selling American Depositary Shares (ADS), an equity share of a non-US firm held by an American depositary bank. 

Founded four years ago, Argo became the London Stock Exchange’s first listed cryptocurrency miner with its 2018 IPO.

Argo had discussed potential US listing only two weeks ago

The prospect of increased liquidity and wider access to capital markets caused Argo’s stock price to jump substantially. However, the size of the surge may have come as something of a surprise to traders as the company has been fairly open about its potential plans to list in the US. 

At the start of the month, Argo announced it was “exploring a potential secondary listing on Nasdaq”, but maintained it had “not made any decisions regarding the timing or the terms of the potential secondary listing”. 

Firm has mined 883 BTC in 2021 thus far

As part of the June update, the company revealed it had mined 883 BTC since the start of the year and expects to hold around 1,286 BTC by the end of the month. At the time of writing, this latter figure amounts to just under £29m. 

The firm has not yet decided how many ADS to sell and at what price. 

By mid-afternoon, Argo Blockchain had traded 23.5% at 106.10 pence. Although this represents a 2,700% gain from where the company stood 12 months ago, it is more than 60% below the all-time high of 339.81 pence it enjoyed in February. 

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