Coinbase, Readying for Public Listing, Receives $77B Private Market Valuation

[Cordillerabit]

The Coinbase cryptocurrency exchange, which is preparing to trade publicly over the next few months, is valued at $77 billion, based on the company's private shares being traded on a secondary market.

According to two people with knowledge of the auction, these shares in the largest crypto exchange in the U.S. are changing hands on the Nasdaq Private Market at $303 a piece. That implies a total company value of about $77 billion, greater than the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, Intercontinental Exchange Inc.

On Friday, the third weekly transaction closed and the clearing price was $303 a share," a source said." "It was 200 bucks a share the first week, $301 a share the second week, and $303 a share the third week. So you can sort of see the discovery of price happening.

Coinbase has refused to comment.

Ahead of the company's direct public listing, a date for which is still unknown, the Coinbase private market is running an anonymous order book. The sale allows current and former employees to take some cash off the table, as well as investors in Coinbase. According to sources with knowledge of the offering, around 254 million shares in Coinbase will be outstanding and available for trade when the firm goes public.

At the time of writing, Coinbase pre-IPO futures contracts traded on the crypto derivatives exchange FTX at about $386.

Coinbase goes big

Within the crypto community, hopes for Coinbase's public listing are riding high, particularly as the price of bitcoin (BTC, +0.72 percent) continues to reach above $50,000. (When the confidential S-1 filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is made public in the coming weeks, more will be revealed about Coinbase's finances.)

The argument that the valuation of 100 percent of a company could be very different than the valuation of half a percent of its shares is counter to such great expectations.

Nevertheless, according to a source, the secondary selling of shares sponsored by Coinbase over the past three weeks has seen "meaningful amounts" change hands.

"It's not like the exchange of a handful of shares at $300 a share. It's tens of millions of dollars each week, quite a sizable amount,' the source said.

Source: Bityard