Coinbase Confidentially Files for Public Offering
- The firm has submitted draft registration on “Form S-1”, which is required for both Initial Public Offerings and direct listings.
- Coinbase was valued at $8 billion in 2018, but new estimations place the firm closer to $28 billion.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2018. Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunch
Major cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has taken the first step towards a public offering by filing a draft registration with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the firm said in a blog post on 17 December.
According to the announcement, the firm has submitted draft registration on “Form S-1”, which is required for both Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) and direct listings. While the information in the form is confidential, we do know that Coinbase was valued at $8 billion back in 2018. By going through the firm’s business segments — such as trading, custody, and debit cards — research company Messari estimated that the current value of the company should be close to $28 billion. Messari wrote:
“This listing is important even for Token valuations as Coinbase will provide a valuation anchor — not only for future equity listings — but also for crypto-native exchange tokens.”
While it remains unclear if Coinbase will to go public through and IPO or a direct listing, rumors of the firm eyeing an IPO have been floating around since July, when Reuters cited “three people familiar with the matter”. Either way, Coinbase’s draft registration is still awaiting the SEC’s review. The firm wrote:
“The Form S-1 is expected to become effective after the SEC completes its review process, subject to market and other conditions.”
Coinbase is one of the biggest names in crypto, with it having influence in many corners of the industry. The firm is already one of the largest gateways for cryptocurrency trading in the world, not to mention it has released a popular stablecoin in partnership with Circle. Coinbase has also been working hard throughout 2020 in releasing new products for its customers, such as its bitcoin-backed loans released in August, which allow customers to borrow up to 30% of their BTC holdings in cash.
- A little over $13 million in altcoins were sent to crypto exchanges Binance and Coinbase in the past 24 hours, which is in accordance with a September court order.
- The court ordered a phased liquidation process, which allows the bankruptcy estate to sell $3.4 billion worth of digital assets over a certain period of time.
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- Coinbase’s Base blockchain was made available to the public on Wednesday, featuring over 100 dApps and services as part of its ecosystem.
- In order to show its capabilities and promote its mainnet partners, Base has also launched an event called “Onchain Summer” that will allow users to mint exclusive NFTs on the network.
- During an interview with FT, CEO Brian Armstrong said that before the lawsuit a SEC staff member had said that all crypto except BTC was security, and should be delisted.
- When asked how he came to that conclusion, the SEC staff member reportedly said “we’re not going to explain it to you, you need to delist every asset other that Bitcoin”.