In the euphoria by criptoactivos, Coinbase has estradno today at the Stock Exchange . The platform on which you can buy and sell virtual currencies such as bitcoin, ether or ripple, has started trading today on the Nasdaq through a listing, that is, a direct admission of shares and no new titles are offered .
What is Coinbase?
A platform that allows the sale of crypto assets, such as bitcoin, which has once again set a record by exceeding $ 63,000, and ethereum, which is also skyrocketing. According to CoinMarketCap, it is the second largest digital asset exchange platform in the world by number of operations.
What will your assessment be?
As it is a listing, the Nasdaq has set an approximate starting price of $ 250, which would give it a valuation of about $ 65 billion. However, the firm has debuted at a price of 381 dollars, which gives it a capitalization of 76,000 million dollars (about 60,000 million euros). Minutes after it was released, stocks continued to rise above 400 greenbacks.
In the market it was speculated that its value could reach 100,000 million dollars, about 84,000 million euros, which would imply that the platform would be worth more than the Nasdaq and Intercontinental Exchange – the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange – together. If it exceeds 100,000 million it would instantly become one of the 85 companies with the largest market capitalization in the United States.
What is a listing ?
An IPO in which the shareholders of the company do not sell, a priori, shares and the company does not put new titles into circulation either. The Coinbase listing is the first of a significant nature on the Nasdaq, after Spotify, Slack, Palantir, Asana and Roblox did the same on the NYSE. In the case of these companies, all of them achieved that the IPO price was, on average, 37% above the initially set price.
Who are its shareholders?
Coinbase was founded in June 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam. In October 2012, the company launched services to buy and sell bitcoin through bank transfers. In 2014 it partnered with companies like Dell, Expedia or Time to accept payments in bitcoins.
Among the main funds that have financed the growth of the company are venture capital giants such as Wellington Management, Tiger Global Management, True Capital, IVP, Fundamental Labs and the vehicle of the Japanese bank Mitsubishi UFJ.
Its shareholders also include BBVA , which entered the platform in 2015 through its venture capital business , Propel. It participated in a series C funding round in which Coinbase raised $ 75 million. The operation will involve huge capital gains for BBVA if it sells, or latent capital gains if it decides to keep its stake, “significantly less than 1%” according to sources from the entity. In January of this year, sources from the entity assured CincoDías that it aims to multiply the investment it made then by more than 10.
When BBVA bought shares of Coinbase, the company was valued at $ 400 million.
What are the Coinbase numbers?
The Coinbase platform has 6.1 million active users, up from 2.8 million in Q4 2020. Meanwhile, verified users, those with Coinbase accounts, rose from 43 million at the end of December to 56 million at the end of the first quarter of this year.
The company made $ 1.8 billion in the first quarter of its fiscal year. This is more than he earned in all of 2020.