Coinbase has scheduled its first investor day for August 14, and rumors are already circulating that the cryptocurrency exchange is exploring a public listing. It is not clear, however, whether or not the planned virtual event is related to the eventual plan to become public.
Why an Investor-Day?
A Coinbase spokesman confirmed the event scheduled for August, but added that the intention is simply "to facilitate a broader understanding of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology". "This will not be a traditional day for investors, but rather an opportunity to hear our perspective on cryptoeconomics and learn about the role of Coinbase in the ecosystem," said spokesman Daniel Harrison in a statement.
He gave no further details. Last week, Reuters reported that Coinbase was trying to put together a team of attorneys before making a public offer to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which is before a direct listing. An investor day can often be the forerunner of a direct listing, wrote Jamie McGurk, a former operating partner of Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), on the venture capital firm's website last year. A16z is one of Coinbase's investors, known among other things for its $ 25 million Series B round in December 2013.
Decentralization and direct listing
Direct listing allows shareholders, like venture capitalists, to trade their shares in a public market without the company itself selling new shares. Slack and Spotify, companies dear to Silicon Valley investors, have previously followed this path, minimizing the use of traditional Wall Street brokers.
But such a direction does not preclude a subsequent public offering. Indeed, it can make it more effective. "If more funding is needed in the future, the company now has access to public capital markets as an expert issuer, which is one of the main benefits of being public anyway," wrote McGurk.
A source close to Coinbase said that a direct listing would make sense for Coinbase now, when many people in the crypto sector are anticipating an upward trajectory in the short-term market. Since newer companies such as Compound and Kyber use innovative methods to extend ownership of their platforms to users, direct listing would be the most cost-effective way of providing Coinbase users with access to the company's shares, he noted. source, while adhering to its legal structure.
Since its founding in 2012, Coinbase has raised a total of $ 547 million, according to Crunchbase. His E Series round in October 2018 valued the company at $ 8 billion. The San Francisco-based company boasts over 35 million users and would be the first major American crypto startup to go public if it were to pursue the plan to go public.
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