Key Takeaways
- Coinbase plans to have its IPO led by Goldman Sachs, according to sources interviewed by Business Insider.
- Meanwhile, Messari has predicted that Coinbase could achieve a market cap as high as $ 30 billion.
- However, Coinbase itself has revealed little beyond the fact that it works with regulators.
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New details about Coinbase’s Initial Public Offering (IPO) have been reported by third parties and internal sources.
Goldman Sachs will likely lead an IPO
Goldman Sachs may lead Coinbase’s upcoming IPO, according to insider sources interviewed by Business Insider.
Although the news has not been officially confirmed by Coinbase or Goldman Sachs, the links between the two companies make this news likely to be true. Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam began his career as a professional trader for Goldman Sachs.
Although Ersam left Coinbase in 2017, it is credible that his industry connections are still in play.
In addition, Goldman Sachs has led several other technology IPOs, including IPOs for the Unity dev game platform, the online rental market Airbnb, and the Snowflake cloud computing platform. That makes Coinbase a likely candidate for its next IPO.
Market Cap Could Be $ 30 billion
Elsewhere, the blockchain analytics company has Messari suggest that the market cap for Coinbase could be as much as $ 30 billion.
Messari has based its estimate on Coinbase’s rapidly increasing business activity. Over the past year, the daily volume of exchanges rose from $ 220 million to $ 1 billion, and its holdings grew from $ 7 billion to $ 20 billion. In addition, the company adds about 13,000 retail customers every day.
Messari also considered the values of several other crypto exchanges, stock exchanges, and custodians that have held IPOs, including BC Technology Group, Diginex, and ICE. The average stock valuations of these competing companies were on average 12 to 20 times their sales.
Messari concludes “Coinbase may rank at the high end valuation of $ 32 billion, although we believe $ 28 billion is a fair valuation.”
If that estimate is accurate, that would place Coinbase among the 360 largest publicly traded stocks – somewhere between the Hilton hotel chain and insurance company Aflac.
Hold No Date for IPO
Although Coinbase announced yesterday that it has filed the legal documents required for an IPO, it has disclosed very little to the public beyond working with regulators.
No date has been announced for the IPO, and Coinbase’s application may be denied. However, today’s news suggests that the IPO is close at hand.
If Coinbase’s IPO is successful, it will be the largest crypto exchange to run a public sale. Binance, the only dominant exchange, has not expressed an interest in an IPO.
At the time of writing, this author was holding less than $ 30 of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and altcoins.
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Coinbase Prepares to Launch Initial Public Offer
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