Coinbase goes public, sails toward $100 Billion valuation on Crypto Frenzy
Coinbase Global Inc. is expected to go public this week at a staggering valuation of about $100 billion, a value, the esteemed NY Stock Exchange and NASDAQ could not hold a candle to.
That is an impressive amount for a company that didn’t exist a decade ago.
One of the fast-growing exchanges at the center of the speculative frenzy in cryptocurrencies, Wednesday’s scheduled direct listing on Nasdaq will cement Coinbase’s position as the Big Board of the U.S. crypto scene and a potent symbol of the risks and rewards of the new era of digital money.
The founders of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam are estimated to own stakes worth $15 billion and $2 billion, respectively.
According to cryptocurrency analytics firm Messari, Coinbase has 56 million verified users and adds about 13,000 new retail customers a day. The number would explain how Coinbase expects to report a first-quarter profit of $730 million to $800 million, more than double what it earned in all of 2020. And revenue in the first three months of 2021 probably surpassed all of the $1.3 billion total for last year. That compares with the $5.6 billion of revenue Nasdaq generated last year.
