Nasdaq gave Coinbase a reference price of $ 250 per share on Wednesday ahead of its expected direct listing, which would value cryptocurrency trading at about $ 65.3 billion in fully diluted form.
Coinbase will become the first major cryptocurrency business to go public in the United States, and if it reaches a $ 100 billion market cap, it will instantly be one of the 85 most valuable companies in the country. The company’s value has skyrocketed over the past year along with Bitcoin and Ethereum, the major currencies traded on the site.
Coinbase chose the path of direct listing on the public market instead of pursuing a traditional IPO. This means that instead of raising money by selling new shares to a group of institutional investors, Coinbase allows existing stakeholders to start selling immediately at a market-based price.
The benchmark price provided by Nasdaq reflects recent private market operations and contributions from investment bankers, but does not indicate where the shares will open. This is the first major direct price of the Nasdaq. In the five significant direct listings that have taken place on the New York Stock Exchange (Spotify, Slack, Palantir, Asana and Roblox), the opening price averaged approximately 37% above the reference price.
Coinbase said last week in announcing first-quarter preliminary results that revenue for the period multiplied again to $ 1.8 billion and that net revenue rose to $ 730 million to $ 800 million, from $ 32 million. million a year earlier. The vast majority of transactions on Coinbase involve the purchase of bitcoins and ethereal, which have been in a historic tear, which have risen more than 800% and 1,300%, respectively, over the past year.
Bitcoin and ethereum over the last year
CNBC
For the full year of 2020, revenue doubled more than $ 1.282 billion and the company went from a loss in 2019 to a profit of $ 322.3 million.
Coinbase has drawn up a plan to place itself at the center of an emerging “cryptoeconomy”, in which financial transactions and online markets will largely move to the blockchain, offering investors a wide range of digital currencies to buy. and negotiate. But the company has acknowledged that short-term growth will be dictated primarily by the price and volume of Bitcoin transactions.
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