TL;DR Breakdown
- Coinbase is set for a direct listing on NASDAQ tomorrow, under the ticker symbol “COIN.”
- This milestone event will enable more investment in the crypto market from wall street.
Starting tomorrow, the leading United States-based cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase, goes public on one of the world’s leading stock exchanges, NASDAQ. The exchange will become the first-ever cryptocurrency-related company to go public. This milestone will further extend the crypto market to wall street, and perhaps, it clears the path for more cryptocurrency companies to consider a stock market debut in the coming years.
SEC approved Coinbase for a direct listing
The US exchange is planning to launch on a New York-based stock exchange via a direct listing. The application with the country’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was approved, authorizing the company to go ahead with plans. On this ground, Coinbase said April 1 that it would go public on NASDAQ on April 14 under the ticker symbol “COIN.”
The development comes amid the growing popularity and interest in the cryptocurrency market. Coinbase stock debut tomorrow will provide another medium for institutions and retail investors to indirectly invest in the crypto market.
By choosing the direct listing route, Coinbase will only issue its existing shares instead of offering new ones. The exchange reportedly plans to sell up to 114 million shares.
Cryptocurrency is going mainstream
Following Coinbase’s plan to go public, some other cryptocurrency-related companies have begun considering plans to go public. These include eToro and Kraken. The crypto trading platform, eToro, is planning to go public via a SPAC merger, while Kraken says it will follow the direct listing route if they should go public by 2022.
Meanwhile, the largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, doesn’t have any plan to join the bandwagon soon.
