Swiss Crypto Bank AMINA Explores Public Listing, Rules Out One Path

In 2018, a small Swiss startup called SEBA Bank set out to prove that a licensed, boring, fully regulated bank could also custody and trade crypto. Five years and one rebrand later, the bank now known as AMINA is exploring the most conventional move a financial institution can make: going public.

The bank has brought in a major Wall Street advisory firm to help it weigh the options. That alone isn’t unusual — plenty of companies quietly explore a listing without committing to one. What is notable is which options have reportedly been on the table.

The Reverse Takeover That Wasn’t

Several paths have been discussed, including a merger with a special purpose acquisition company and, more strikingly, a reverse takeover of a digital asset treasury company — a structure that has become a popular shortcut for crypto firms wanting public status without the long slog of a traditional IPO process. After that detail circulated, a spokesperson for the bank pushed back specifically on the DAT reverse-takeover route, saying it “is not an option for us,” while stopping well short of ruling out a public listing altogether.

A Regulated Bank First, a Crypto Company Second

What makes AMINA’s potential listing different from most crypto IPO chatter is the regulatory posture underneath it. The bank operates under direct oversight from Switzerland’s financial markets regulator, FINMA, offering trading, custody, staking, and lending mostly to institutional clients rather than retail speculators. That is a slower, more conservative business than a typical exchange, and it shows in the calculus: executives have reportedly framed the decision around finding the right “strategic growth” capital rather than racing to list while crypto sentiment happens to be favorable.

AMINA is not alone in weighing this. A wider group of crypto-adjacent financial firms has been reassessing IPO timing and structure as market sentiment swings between risk-on enthusiasm and sharp pullbacks, making the choice of when and how to go public unusually consequential right now. Whatever AMINA decides, it will be read by the rest of the industry as a signal of how a genuinely bank-regulated crypto institution — as opposed to an exchange or a token issuer — chooses to enter public markets.

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