Forget about your Airbnbs, Facebooks, and Ubers; the largest-ever public offering could be directly related to cryptocurrency.
Feb. 26, 2021
2021 has already been one hell of a ride and it’s showing no signs of slowing down as Coinbase, whose private valuation dwarfs the largest IPOs in U.S. history, looks to go public.
And it’s a crypto play…
What on earth is Coinbase?
Coinbase is a digital currency exchange headquartered in San Francisco that brokers exchanges of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, and many more. If you’re unsure what any of these words mean, you might want to catch up quickly, because yesterday Coinbase filed its S-1 to directly list on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol ‘COIN’ rather than go public via a traditional IPO.
Here are the important details of Coinbase’s financials that we know so far:
- 2020 revenue was $1.3 billion, up from $534 million in 2019.
- Net income was $322 million after posting a loss in 2019.
- Profit margins were a whopping 25%.
- The company reported 2.8 million monthly transacting users in 2020 and had 43 million verified users.
Those are some crazy numbers, and what comes next will only serve to add to the hysteria:
Coinbase sold an initial batch of 75,000 privately held shares on January 29, worth $200 apiece. It then sold two more batches at $301 and $303 apiece respectively, followed by its most recent batch of 127,000 shares that were sold last Friday at $373, which works out to a valuation of $100.23 billion.
In other words: the most-valuable public offering in U.S. history.
Before investors go scarpering for a piece of this lucrative pie, it’s important to read up on what exactly a direct listing is, and how it differs from traditional IPOs. You can do so on our blog here.
Coinbase’s S-1 Filing
If you’re brave enough, you can access Coinbase’s 200+ page S-1 document here. If not, then check out this graph that we took from it, which depicts the crypto markets’ capitalization alongside the S&P 500 over the past 4 years…
MyWallSt operates a full disclosure policy. MyWallSt staff currently holds long positions in companies mentioned above. Read our full disclosure policy here.