Coinbase, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world will be listed on Nasdaq index on 14 April this year and is likely to be valued at around $100 billion. After months or even years of delays, Coinbase is finally close to achieving its long-term dream and it will be a monumental achievement in the crypto world’s history. If all goes well, the Coinbase stock will soon be traded on Nasdaq and users from around the world will be able to purchase and deal in it.
As a result of this ensuing move, exchange tokens are experiencing some consistent growth including the likes of Uniswap (UNI), Binance Coin (BNB) and Wazirx (WRX).
Coinbase had submitted an application back in December 2020 regarding its stock listing. Initially, it was expected that the listing would be done in March but the actual public offering was delayed till 14 of this month. This was partly because of a previous case lodged by the US Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) regarding exchange price manipulation on the Coinbase platform. The exchange paid a hefty $6.5 million in fines to get a green signal from the CFTC, which had alleged that the company had engaged in exchange manipulation and fake trading data.
This was however, an minor overall dent on the exchange’s working as it sees a massive $13 billion in trading volume every day. Now with the clearance from CFTC settled, Coinbase has now moved forward with its Nasdaq Listing. Instead of an Initial Public Offering (IPO), the company instead engaged in a direct listing on Nasdaq thus bypassing the conventional approach of using investment banks to calculate net worth. While this does accelerate the listing process, it does tend to cause some issues from time to time. However, Coinbase is confident it can pull it off without any assistance from investment banks.
The estimated worth of Coinbase stock (COIN) is going to be $100 billion on the day it gets listed on the stock market. The move is also expected to galvanize the exchange sector and motivate other big and small exchanges to go public too. However, Coinbase spent almost 2-3 years getting ready for an IPO on one of the largest stock exchanges in the world so it won’t be easy for them to just start listing themselves. We have to remember that Coinbase is one of the “clean” around and even it had to pay several millions in fines before the eventual listing, Other exchanges might face the big issue of completely turning over their books to regulators. The US and European regulatory bodies are some of the toughest in the world and many exchanges will face big difficulties getting in, but other markets are known to be lax on the rules and may allow exchange listings with less stringent compliance.
In any case, exchange listings are likely to mushroom around the world after the Coinbase listing.
Image source: Marco Verch Professional Under CC
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