Nasdaq gave Coinbase a reference price of $ 250 per share on Wednesday ahead of the planned direct listing, which, if fully diluted, would value the cryptocurrency exchange at around $ 65.3 billion.
Coinbase is expected to be the first major crypto company in the US to go public, and with a market cap of $ 100 billion, it will instantly be one of the 85 most valuable companies in the country. The company’s value has risen over the past year alongside Bitcoin and Ethereum, the major currencies traded on the site.
Coinbase opted for the direct listing route to the public market instead of pursuing a traditional IPO. That said, instead of raising money by selling new shares to a group of institutional investors, Coinbase enables existing stakeholders to immediately begin selling at a fair market price.
The reference price provided by Nasdaq reflects recent trades in the private market and contributions 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 on the New York Stock Exchange – Spotify, Slack, Palantir, Asana and Roblox – the opening price averaged 37% above the reference price.
If Coinbase opened at a similar percentage increase, the price would be $ 343, which is very close to the average private market price in the first quarter of $ 343.58.
Coinbase announced last week, when it announced preliminary first quarter results, that revenue for the reporting period increased nine-fold to $ 1.8 billion and net income increased to between $ 730 million and $ 800 million from $ 32 million last year Dollar has gone up. The vast majority of transactions on Coinbase involve buying Bitcoin and Ethereum, which have suffered a historic rift in the past and have increased over 800% and 1,300% respectively over the past year.
Bitcoin and Ethereum last year
CNBC
For full-year 2020 sales more than doubled to $ 1.28 billion, and the company rose from a loss in 2019 to a profit of $ 322.3 million.
Coinbase has devised a plan to be at the center of an emerging “crypto-economy” in which financial transactions and online marketplaces are largely shifted to the blockchain, offering investors a wide range of digital currencies to buy and trade. However, the company has recognized that short-term growth will primarily be determined by the price and transaction volume of Bitcoin.
CLOCK: Crypto strategist on how Coinbase’s debut is validating cryptocurrencies
