Shares in Coinbase Global Inc. reportedly traded for a price between $350 and $375 per unit on the Nasdaq private auction market last week. Giving the company a pre-IPO valuation of between $90–$100 billion.
However, pre-IPO market activity is not always an accurate representation of how the stock will perform when it goes live. Restrictive trade volumes in private markets don’t accurately convey live open market conditions.
The stock was first valued at $8 billion following a Coinbase series E funding round in 2018. That valuation has since increased as shares were traded at a price of $200 on a private forum created by the exchange in January.
The price of privately traded shares is used to set a reference price for the stock when companies finally go public on the Nasdaq platform.
Coinbase filed registration with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) this past December. And is set to go public later in March.
Coinbase’s latest valuation in private secondary trading could make its direct listing the largest technology firm debut since Facebook.
Coinbase has listed a number of limitations with the current financial system. Laying out the need for a “cryptoeconomy” in its S-1 filing. The company believes relying on a string of third-parties for money movement is a timely and costly process.
Having launched in 2012, Coinbase is one of the most prominent cryptocurrency exchanges in the business. It currently processes the second-most trade volume among centralized exchanges.
And was recently revealed to store coins with a value equating to 11% of the total crypto market capitalization for its customers.
Coinbase coming off profitable 2020
Coinbase ended 2020 with total revenue of $1.3 billion. As the price of Bitcoin soared from about $7,000 to $29,000.
The company’s trading volumes more than doubled from nearly $80 billion in 2019 to $193 billion in 2020.
