Bending Spoons IPO: $25.7B valuation, tokenized shares on Kraken

An Italian tech holding company most people have never heard of just pulled off one of 2026’s biggest IPOs. Bending Spoons, the Milan-based owner of Evernote, Vimeo and AOL, started trading on Nasdaq on July 1 under the ticker BSP. Shares surged nearly 40% on the first day to close at $40.50.

The stock priced at $29 per share, above the anticipated $26-to-$28 range. The company raised roughly $1.68 billion, with about $953.9 million going directly to Bending Spoons. The debut pushed its market capitalization to around $25.7 billion, more than double the $11 billion private valuation from October 2025.

Bending Spoons began as a digital diary app called Evertale in 2013. Co-founders Luca Ferrari and Matteo Danieli turned it into a serial acquirer of digital properties. The portfolio now includes Evernote, WeTransfer, Vimeo, Eventbrite and AOL. The company claims over 1 billion registered users and hundreds of millions of monthly active users. Both Ferrari and Danieli are now billionaires.

Bending Spoons itself has no direct involvement in crypto or blockchain. The IPO matters for crypto markets because of what happened alongside the traditional listing. Tokenized versions of Bending Spoons shares, trading under the symbol BSPx, became available through platforms like Kraken’s xStocks and Backed.fi. These tokens offer 1:1 exposure to the company’s actual equity without requiring a traditional brokerage account.

The mechanism is straightforward: a custodian holds the underlying BSP shares, and the platform issues a token representing a claim on that custodied stock. Holders can trade the token 24/7, settle in stablecoins, and use it as collateral on crypto exchanges. Kraken already lets users post tokenized stocks as futures collateral, a feature it launched earlier this year.

The risk is regulatory. Tokenized equities fall under SEC jurisdiction, and the agency has not issued guidance on their status. The SEC has been cautious about products that blend securities with crypto infrastructure. Any enforcement action against tokenized stock platforms could freeze redemptions or force delistings. Investors holding BSPx tokens face two layers of risk: Bending Spoons’ business performance and potential regulatory action against the tokenized share structure.

A second risk is structural. If the custodian fails or the token issuer goes under, token holders may not have a direct claim on the underlying shares. The 1:1 peg depends on the solvency of the intermediary. That is a different risk profile from holding BSP directly through a broker.

For traders watching the tokenized equity space, Bending Spoons’ IPO is a test case. The stock’s strong debut and the simultaneous token listing show demand for hybrid products. The regulatory clock is ticking. The SEC has not approved tokenized equities as a class. Until it does, every tokenized stock carries a tail risk that the infrastructure supporting it could be dismantled.

No date has been set for a ruling or enforcement action. Until then, BSPx trades as a bet on both the company and the regulatory path.