Coinbase, which was established in 2012, has been one of the leaders in the industry since it initially only provided simple bitcoin purchase services, and now has extended various businesses and entered multiple fields of the cryptocurrency industry. And Coinbase has lived up to expectations, step by step towards an IPO that has traditionally been only common in the mining field.
Coinbase today announced the secret submission of a draft S-1 registration statement to the SEC. The so-called “secret submission” is based on the “Start-up Business Financing Act” (JOBS) signed by former US President Barack Obama, which is applicable to those who want to challenge the growth of an IPO with annual revenue of less than 1 billion US dollars in the recent past. Type enterprise.
According to the Reuters report, which first reported that Coinbase will challenge the listing, the company will proceed in the form of DPO. For example, in the “JOBS Act”, the listing restrictions for DPOs are also much less than that of traditional IPOs. For example, there is no lock-up period, and investors can cash out at any time after buying.
However, according to the Fortune report, the reason why Coinbase prefers to challenge direct listing in the form of DPO may be that the traditional IPO is first underwritten by underwriters such as banks to large institutions to pre-subscribe at a fixed price, and this may allow most Investors of Amber are very disgusted; in contrast, DPO not only has a simpler process, but also a more transparent overall situation.
As the US securities law restricts the promotion of unregistered securities, it can be seen from Coinbase’s article that their terminology is still very conservative and emphasizes that these announcements do not constitute advertisements for offering or selling securities.
In July of this year, three people familiar with the matter revealed to Reuters that the US cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is starting preparations for stock listing and will submit a listing application to the SEC at the end of this year. According to sources, Coinbase was valued at more than US$8 billion in private equity financing in 2018, when it wanted to go public directly, rather than through an IPO.
If the SEC is nodded, it will mean that Coinbase will become the first publicly listed cryptocurrency exchange, and it will also be an important milestone for cryptocurrency to move towards the mainstream.
In addition, the exchange FTX, which is expected to launch pre-IPO products, may not miss this opportunity.
◢▏ Compared with PayPal
Coinbase became one of the few exchanges that advised people to invest rationally at this time when Bitcoin broke its historical high and continued to rush upward. The founder Brian Armstrong announced on the 17th:
“Now as we saw in 2017, there will be occasional bull markets where prices rise rapidly and rapidly. Although we are very happy to see the profitability of cryptocurrency, we must also point out that it is not only a high trading volume Moment is also a moment of high price volatility.”
He said that Coinbase believes that cryptocurrency is a transformative innovation and is optimistic about the long-term market. However, they are still unable to be perfect in advocating the risks of cryptocurrency investment. For example, cryptocurrencies are much more volatile than other traditional financial investment tools. Therefore, they also try their best to provide various trading tools in response to market conditions, and warn investors to do their investment risk homework and negotiate with financial advisers.
◢▏ Selected as 2020 Blockchain 50 Company
Among the 2020 Blockchain 50 companies released by the well-known advisory agency CB Insight, Coinbase is classified as a cryptocurrency exchange, and it has a close relationship with Bitman and Bitfury in the mining chip and software industry, and Chainalysis, a blockchain analysis software company. , Digital Currency Group, a blockchain-related business group, is listed as the top five unicorn companies, and the next round of financing or valuation exceeds 1 billion US dollars.
