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April 14, 2021 The Crypto Briefing

Coinbase makes history as the first cryptocurrency company to go public.

Coinbase Goes Public in First for Crypto

Coinbase is now live on NASDAQ.

COIN shares were trading at $381 on market open Wednesday, significantly up from the initial $250 reference price NASDAQ set yesterday.

Coinbase filed 261.3 million Common Stock shares to the SEC this week. COIN is now trading at $395, which puts the company’s valuation at around 103 billion.

Coinbase is the first major cryptocurrency company to go public. The event has been described as a watershed moment for the industry as crypto continues to pervade the mainstream. Earlier this year, Bitcoin hit a $1 trillion market cap amid growing interest in digital currencies. “Today is a big milestone for Coinbase and an even bigger milestone for crypto,” the company wrote on Twitter.

Today is a big milestone for Coinbase and an even bigger milestone for crypto. Thank you to our employees and customers for getting us here. Together, we can build the cryptoeconomy and create economic freedom for all. Join us for today's events at https://t.co/kki68arv3O $COIN pic.twitter.com/Bvcu9R0otq

— Coinbase (@coinbase) April 14, 2021

The company also left a timestamp in the Bitcoin blockchain via f2pool to mark the event. The text featured a headline from today’s The New York Times, similar to the one Satoshi Nakamoto imprinted into the Genesis block.

Coinbase was founded in 2012 and became known for catering to the retail investor market. It earns revenue from charging fees to buy and trade digital currencies, making most from Bitcoin and Ethereum.

In recent years, though, it’s also become a hub for institutional investors as the crypto movement snowballs. It offers a custodial service aimed at high net worth individuals and has assisted MicroStrategy and other companies in buying significant volumes of Bitcoin.

Ahead of the public listing, it was revealed that Coinbase had generated $1.8 billion of revenue in the first quarter of 2021—more than it made in the whole of 2020.

The cryptocurrency exchange, whose headquarters is in San Francisco, opted for a direct listing over an initial public offering. In a direct listing, companies sell shares to the public without using an underwriter or issuing new shares. “I wanted there to be just a true market on day one that set the price,” Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong told CNBC earlier today.”I felt like it was more true to the ethos of crypto.”

In a surprise gift, all 1,700 Coinbase employees were granted 100 shares, worth around $40,000 today. Company executives and investors received a much bigger payout, led by Andreessen Horowitz’s Marc Andressen, who reportedly holds 1.65 million Class A shares of the 261.3 million total.

The landmark event had been anticipated for months and was widely discussed among crypto’s leading figures in the lead-up. Fred Ehrsam, Coinbase’s co-founder and one of its key architects alongside Armstrong, shared a tweet storm reflecting on the company’s early years, saying that he was “honored to be a small part of this journey which will transform society for the better.”

Binance, meanwhile, listed COIN on its recently launched stock exchange. FTX also listed futures for the stock; they crashed in the lead-up to the listing, possibly due to reports that the indicative price would be $340.

The crypto market itself has also reacted to the event. Bitcoin and Ethereum surged in the lead-up and have continued rallying today. Bitcoin is trading at $63,300.

Following Coinbase’s footsteps, long-established exchange Kraken is rumored to go public next. Should crypto continue to draw mainstream interest, Coinbase’s move could be a catalyst for many other companies to go public, and ultimately, wider adoption of cryptocurrencies.

Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this feature owned ETH and several other cryptocurrencies.

$COIN — it’s only the beginning

April 14, 2021 Coinbase

$COIN — it’s only the beginning

By Brian Armstrong, Co-founder and CEO

Today Coinbase is listing on Nasdaq. A decade of work and so many people brought us here. This includes every Coinbase employee, focused for years on building a financial system that’s free, fair, and open to everyone. It also includes you, the 56 million people who use Coinbase. And of course, we have to recognize Satoshi Nakamoto, who started it all by introducing Bitcoin to the world in 2008.

We’ve had a number of ups and downs on our way here. Through luck and skill, Coinbase succeeded where many predicted it would fail. We weathered the ups and downs through innovation and keeping our eye on the long term. And along the way, we made cryptocurrency easier to use, introducing millions of people to this new technology. I’m proud of what we have accomplished so far. But we certainly didn’t do all this work just for one day.

Today’s listing is a milestone, but it’s not as important as every new day in front of us. Coinbase has an ambitious mission: to increase economic freedom in the world. Everyone deserves access to financial services that can help them build a better life for themselves and their families. We have a lot of hard work to do to make this a reality.

We’re still in the early days of this industry, but we’re squarely focused on the future, on our mission, and on building the best crypto experiences for you, our community.

Thank you all for your trust and support,

Brian Armstrong

CEO, Coinbase

$COIN — it’s only the beginning was originally published in The Coinbase Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Coinbase’s COIN stock reference price set at just $250 as 1,700 staff get free shares

April 14, 2021 Coin Telegraph

COIN

Coinbase’s reference price of $250, received ahead of the Nasdaq direct listing, values a “thank you” gift to all 1,700 full-time employees at $25,000.

Major United States exchange Coinbase’s COIN stock has received a reference price at $250 from Nasdaq ahead of the much-anticipated direct listing on the stock exchange just hours from now.

The price is far below the current FTX pre-trading price of $600, albeit on thin 24-hour volume of under $4 million.

The exchange is going public via a direct listing instead of an initial public offering, meaning the reference price is not a direct indicator of the company’s market cap. It simply implies a valuation of $65 billion, which is below other estimates ranging between $68 billion and $120 billion.

The Nasdaq announcement stated that the reference price, which reflects past transactions but was established by consultation with Coinbase’s financial advisors, was created due to the fact “COIN has not had recent sustained trading in a private placement market.”

The reference price does not reflect the opening price, the announcement made clear:

“Please note that the reference price is NOT an offering price and nobody has purchased or sold shares at that price. The opening public price will be determined based on buy and sell orders in the opening auction on Nasdaq.”

This is the first significant direct listing on the Nasdaq. According to CNBC, across “the five significant direct listings that have taken place on the New York Stock Exchange — Spotify, Slack, Palantir, Asana and Roblox — the opening price was on average about 37% above the reference price.” Following this trend, it would put Coinbase’s opening price above $340, with a valuation of around $90 billion.

The trading price could surge even higher with the Coinbase pre-listing contract CBSE currently trading around $600 on the FTX exchange, representing a 140% premium above the reference price. Another indicator suggesting a strong first day was the Q1 2021 financial statement suggesting that revenue spiked to $1.8 billion, bringing in net income up to $800 million, which is up from the $32 million recorded during the same period last year.

In the lead-up to the Nasdaq listing, Coinbase surprised all 1,700 full-time employees by giving them 100 shares each, worth $25,000 at the current reference price. The March 25 “thank you” gift is a no-strings-attached grant, meaning they could sell them immediately after the listing goes public tomorrow.

These shares are in addition to the 105,510 share options handed out to employees of Coinbase’s Irish arm in recent years.

Coinbase expects direct listing on April 14

April 1, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Business

The San Francisco-based company could be the first crypto exchange to go public in the United States.

U.S.-based crypto exchange Coinbase says it anticipates going public with a direct stock listing in two weeks.

According to a Coinbase blog today, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, has declared the crypto exchange's S-1 registration for a public offering effective. Coinbase's Class A common stock is expected to trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol "COIN" on April 14.

The crypto exchange had previously been expected to go public in March, but reportedly delayed its plans after paying a $6.5 million fee as part of a settlement with the Community Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC.

Coinbase sent its draft registration for a public offering to the SEC in December, though the crypto exchange disclosed plans to pursue a direct listing through Nasdaq in early 2021. The firm may have a $100 billion valuation at the time of its initial public offering, as suggested by the exchange’s shares reportedly selling for up to $375 each in a private auction last month.

First launched in 2012, Coinbase is one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the United States, with Coinbase Pro handling more than $3 billion in daily transactions according to CoinMarketCap. Crypto exchange Kraken, also based in California, has not yet confirmed that it will follow in Coinbase's footsteps by going public, but said it would do so through a direct listing rather than a special-purpose acquisition company.

Coinbase Announces Effectiveness of Registration Statement and Anticipated Listing Date of its…

April 1, 2021 Coinbase

Coinbase Announces Effectiveness of Registration Statement and Anticipated Listing Date of its Class A Common Stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market

Coinbase Global, Inc., today announced that its registration statement on Form S-1, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), relating to a proposed public direct listing of its Class A common stock was declared effective by the SEC on April 1, 2021. Coinbase anticipates that its Class A common stock will begin trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol “COIN” on April 14, 2021.

A copy of the prospectus related to the registration statement may be obtained by visiting EDGAR on the SEC website or via the investor relations page on Coinbase’s website at investor.coinbase.com under the “SEC Filings” section.

The registration statement relating to these securities has been filed with, and declared effective by, the SEC. This announcement does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

Forward-Looking Statements

This communication contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements. These statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the date on which Coinbase’s Class A common stock will be available for trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market. The words “believe,” “may,” “will,” “potential,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “expect,” “could,” and “would,” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on management’s expectations, assumptions, and projections based on information available at the time the statements were made. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, including risks and uncertainties related to: whether or not Coinbase will consummate the proposed public direct listing, prevailing market conditions, investor demand for shares of Coinbase’s Class A common stock, and the impact of general economic, industry or regulatory conditions in the United States or internationally. Further information on risks that could affect Coinbase’s business and the proposed public direct listing are included in Coinbase’s filings with the SEC including the Form S-1/A filed on March 23, 2021. Except as required by law, Coinbase assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

About Coinbase

Coinbase is building the cryptoeconomy — a more fair, accessible, efficient, and transparent financial system enabled by crypto. The company started in 2012 with the radical idea that anyone, anywhere, should be able to easily and securely send and receive Bitcoin. Today, we offer a trusted and easy-to-use platform for accessing the broader cryptoeconomy.

Contacts
Press: press@coinbase.com
Investor Relations: investor@coinbase.com

Coinbase Announces Effectiveness of Registration Statement and Anticipated Listing Date of its… was originally published in The Coinbase Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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