Host of Baron’s Roundtable discusses coin exchange Coinbase revealed today
The fortune of Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has risen to the success of the company’s historic direct listing on the Nasdaq. Coinbase is the first company specializing in cryptocurrencies to debut on the stock market.
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Armstrong’s stake in COIN is worth about $ 13 billion at the end of Wednesday, at $ 328.28 a share, although the stock was lower on Thursday.
Shares of the San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange, which trades under the ticker COIN, were traded at $ 381 apiece, giving the company a valuation of about $ 99.5 billion.
| Ticker | Safety | Last | Alter | Alter% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| COIN | Currency base GLOBAL | 322.75 | -5.53 | -1.68% |
Coinbase supports trading for more than 50 cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, and offers investors a digital wallet to store their cryptocurrencies.
Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images for Vanity Fair (Getty Images)
As the largest individual shareholder in Coinbase, Armstrong owns nearly 40 million shares, giving it control of approximately 21 percent of the company’s equity, according to the company’s listing prospectus.
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Armstrong says the idea for Coinbase came during the Thanksgiving holiday in 2010 while reading Satoshi Nakomoto’s white paper for Bitcoin.
“When I read that, I realized that crypto has the power to unlock a future where economic freedom was a reality for all,” Armstrong tweeted Wednesday. “It has driven me ever since because I believe that creating more economic freedom is one of the biggest meta-problems of our time. It has so many positive downstream effects in society.”
He started coding an early Coinbase prototype, known as “Bitbank”, on his evenings and weekends, and he would regularly visit early bitcoin meetings in the Bay. Later, he decided to quit his job at holiday giant Airbnb to make Coinbase a reality with the help of YCombinator.
“It’s hard to judge how bad an idea everyone thought Coinbase was,” Armstrong said. “Friends in technology said they did not get it, or that it was a scam. I personally had a lot of self-doubt and thought I was crazy because I was so interested in it.”
Armstrong later joined forces with Fred Ersham, co-founder and managing partner of crypto-focused investment firm Paradigm, to expand the current Coinbase in an attic in the South of Market area of San Francisco.
Photo by Tammy Perez / Getty Images for SXSW (Getty Images)
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Today, the company has grown to 56 million users and serves 7,000 institutional customers and 115,000 ecosystem partners in more than 100 countries and has generated more than $ 3.4 billion in total revenue since its inception.
For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020, Coinbase reported revenue of $ 1.14 billion, up 139% from 2019, and net income of $ 322 million, compared to a loss of $ 30 million in 2019. Adjusted EBITDA also experienced significant growth, rising to $ 527 million compared to $ 24.3 million in 2019.
Last week, the company preliminary results reported for the first quarter, which ended on March 31, and provided a full-year outlook. Coinbase reported revenue of approximately $ 1.8 billion, net income of approximately $ 730 million to $ 800 million and adjusted EBITDA of approximately $ 1.1 billion. The company also reported 6.1 million monthly transactions, with a trading volume of $ 335 billion, and more than $ 223 billion in assets, including $ 122 billion in institutional assets, representing a market share of 11 crypto-assets. 3% represented.
With a view to the full year for 2021, Coinbase expects users to vary transactions between 4 and 7 million per month, depending on the crypto-market capitalization and the volatility of the crypto-asset.
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While Armstrong sees direct listing as an important milestone for the company, he acknowledged in a blog post that the work of Coinbase towards its ambitious goal of increasing economic freedom in the world is just beginning.
“We are still in the early days of this industry, but we are very focused on the future, on our mission and on building the best crypto experiences for you, our community,” Armstrong said.
He added in a Twitter thread on Thursday that while his idea for Coinbase was far from perfect, it emphasized ‘the importance of resilience and ignoring haters when trying to build something new’.
“The wild part is that you never know if you’re crazy, or that everyone is different,” Armstrong said. “The key here is that if your gut tells you that there is something interesting, go do it and see what happens. Only action will yield more information and not be able to debate it endlessly.”