Coinbase, the leading American cryptocurrency exchange has plans for going public on a stock market listing.
The California-based digital asset trading platform may officially debut on the stock exchange this year or at the beginning of 2021, claims an anonymous insider in his talks with the Reuters. Meanwhile, the Coinbase itself has not released any comments regarding the rumors.
Meanwhile, Reuters sources reveal that the company is more inclined to go public by using the direct listing instead of a traditional Initial Public Offering (IPO). Direct listings also known as Direct Public Offering (DPO) allow companies to start trading shares without any pre-trading steps, which include creation, underwriting, and selling of new shares via the IPO.
DPO becomes a popular way to go public as it allows to skip the middlemen, although the company itself does not raise any funds. Respectively by choosing IPO the company admits to creating extra shares that help raise additional capital for its operations or expansion.
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According to Reuters sources, the company is dealing with investment banks and layers, however, the plans still may be changed since Coinbase has not yet confirmed its willingness to go on public listing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Coinbase is one of the best-performing companies in the cryptocurrency industry. Founded 8 years ago, the trading platform has more than 35 million users and was valued at over $8 billion at the last funding round in 2018.
Although the fact of the direct listing is still unconfirmed, if it proves to be true, Coinbase will become the first major billion-value cryptocurrency startup outside the mining industry, that goes publicly listed on stock market exchange.
The cryptocurrency community predicts the fact will bring more attention to the industry itself and help toward the legitimation of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin in the eyes of the broader public.
However, the more skeptical opinions claim that the move might be influenced by the growing competition of the decentralized financed (DeFi) sector, where the role of decentralized exchanges (DEX) is rapidly increasing with trading volumes beating the all-time records.
