Reuters reported on July 9 that Coinbase, a prominent U.S.-based cryptocurrency trading platform, started planning a stock market debut later this year, or early next year.
Coinbase is looking forward to the approval of the US Securities Exchange Commission in order to obtain a direct listing on the stock exchange market. While the marketplace has not yet rolled out its submissions to SEC, plans have been addressed with leading financial and investment firms.
This move marks a major milestone in crypto space, as Coinbase will be the first crypto marketplace to have a stock market listing.
Coinbase CEO Grand Vision for the Exchange
Brian Armstrong, Coinbase’s co-founder, and CEO was just an Airbnb software engineer when he read the Bitcoin manifesto published by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2010, which presented Bitcoin as an underground currency. Its transactions recorded on a ledger called the blockchain, and the arithmetic tasks of nodes and mining, etc., did not interest Armstrong. However, he saw an opportunity for businesses to protect the keys to coins and to set up transactions.
His employer at the time sent money to the Latin American landlord and used to describe the sending process as opaque, expensive, and time-consuming. As if this were to give birth to his aspirations in the financial system, Armstrong envisioned a global and open system that would drive growth, innovation, and freedom.
That year he bought Bitcoin for $1000, each selling at $9, and began his Coinbase project. Armstrong wrote code in Ruby and JavaScript for the buying and storing of digital coins on working on weekends and late evenings.
In January 2015, the startup received a major round of funding worth $75 million from the New York Stock Exchange, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, USAA and several other investment banks, its selling proposal being safety and secure storekeeping of private keys. Now the number of people using crypto has risen to about 100 million, and over 35 million of them trust Coinbase.
Going Public
Coinbase’s most recent funding was in 2018, putting the company at a valuation of $8 billion. The company is now planning a direct listing, which, unlike the traditional IPO, allows companies to go public without having to raise funds through stock sales. Apparently, shareholders will be able to trade their equity without having their stakes diluted by fresh issuances.