In December 2020, Coinbase, a crypto asset exchange that expressed its intention to list, submitted the necessary form S1 (S-1 filing) documents for listing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
As Bitcoin, the representative cryptocurrency, entered the $50,000 range in February 2021, and the transaction is becoming more active, Coinbase’s performance also showed good performance, and it is revealed that the sales reached $1.27 billion in 2020.
Coinbase was founded in 2012 by Brian Armstrong, an Airbnb engineer who used to be able to purchase crypto assets online. Coinbase’s main revenue is from transaction fees, and it is not known in detail until now, but the specific amount was revealed by submitting the necessary documents for listing.
According to the data, the amount of telecommunication transactions within the platform was 455 billion dollars, and in 2020 alone, sales were 1.27 billion dollars and profits were 322 million dollars.
When listing companies in Silicon Valley, there are many IPOs, but Coinbase chose to list directly. Until now, IPO was conducted in case of issuing new stocks by listing only existing stocks, but it seems that this method was chosen because the Securities and Exchange Commission made it possible to issue new stocks even if it is directly listed in December 2020.
Existing Coinbase shares hold more than 5.5 million shares of Mark Andersen, co-founder of venture capital Andersen Horowitz, and more than 2.7 million shares of CEO Brian Armstrong. The voting rights are 21.8% of Armstrong’s CEO, 9% of co-founders, 14.2% of Andersen, 8.2% of early investor Fred Wilson, and 54% of the 11-member management and board of directors.
Recently, the interest of investors and the financial industry has increased, and the position of electric car company Tesla has changed significantly, such as purchasing bitcoin. The listing of Coinbase is also expected to be a big step for crypto assets. Related information can be found here.