Nasdaq gave Coinbase a reference price of $ 250 per share on Wednesday ahead of its planned direct listing, which would value the cryptocurrency exchange at around $ 65.3 billion on a fully diluted basis.
Coinbase will become the first major crypto company to go public in the US and, should it reach a market cap of $ 100 billion, it will immediately become one of the 85 most valuable companies in the country. The company’s value has skyrocketed over the past year, alongside bitcoin and ethereum, the main currencies traded on the site.
Coinbase opted for the direct listing path to the public market rather than pursuing a traditional IPO. That means that instead of raising cash by selling new shares to a group of institutional investors, Coinbase gives existing stakeholders the opportunity to sell immediately at a market-driven price.
The reference price provided by Nasdaq reflects recent trades in the private market and input from investment bankers, but does not indicate where the stock will open. This is Nasdaq’s first major direct listing. In the five major direct listings that took 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.
Coinbase said last week in announcing its first-quarter preliminary results that revenue over the period has increased nine-fold to $ 1.8 billion, and net income has increased from $ 32 million a year earlier to between $ 730 million and $ 730 million. 800 million. The vast majority of transactions on Coinbase involve the purchase of bitcoin and ethereum, which have seen a historic crack in the past year, rising more than 800% and 1,300% respectively.
Bitcoin and ethereum in the past year
CNBC
For the full year 2020, revenues have more than doubled to $ 1.28 billion, and the company has grown from a loss in 2019 to a profit of $ 322.3 million.
Coinbase has outlined a plan to be at the center of an emerging “crypto economy,” in which financial transactions and online marketplaces will largely move to the blockchain, allowing investors to buy and trade a wide variety of digital currencies. But the company has acknowledged that short-term growth will mainly be driven by bitcoin’s price and transaction volume.
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