Bitcoin Forum

I found this nice infochart about IPO visualizations, and I was surprised to see that Coinbase was the largest IPO in 2021.

With a 86 billion dollars valuation, it was the largest of the year of 2021.


https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Companies-Going-Public-in-2021-08.jpg
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/companies-going-public-in-2021-visualizing-ipo-valuations/

Let's see what is waiting us in the future. I was really impressed with the size of this IPO and I didn't expect a so much successful one by coinbase.

Will Binance do one some day? They are are now complying to all regulations, and just  began enforcing mandatory KYC on all users amid mounting regulatory pressure (https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/115166/binance-mandatory-kyc-regulatory-pressure[/url)

They are probably looking to comply to do something bigger.

I think binance would take a few years to do an ipo though, it's potentially something for about 4 years time but it'll take them a while to get to the point coinbase was at.

I'm also not sure where they'd hold the ipo since a lot of Americans mightve invested because the ipo was in the US, putting binance's in Singapore might make them less trusted and might block US customers from investing too (due to regulations).

I'm not sure if I'd be impressed with that or not--do you think Coinbase is actually worth $86 billion?  I just took a look at their P/E, and it's 30.64.  That's probably low for a tech stock, but for a financial institution (which is basically what Coinbase is), it's high.  They've either got to keep growing their profits or their stock price is going to sink until that P/E is down to around 10-15, in my opinion.

On the other hand, they do have real earnings, which is more than can probably be said for a lot of companies on that infogram.  I don't recognize most of the names on it, but they sound like they're mostly tech companies and I'd bet that most of them don't even have any earnings yet.

I'd only invest in Coinbase if they started to pay a dividend, which most financial stocks do.  At least with that, there's some reason to hold the stock if it doesn't produce any capital gains.

I think it's because people look at Coinbase a lot more of a tech growth stock than an actual finance company. And the fact that Coinbase holds crypto(and are planning on buying more using $500m as per the recent announcement), people can use Coinbase as a sort of "safer" crypto index.

Knowing that the cryptocurrency space is a fast moving industry, I doubt they'd provide dividends anytime soon. Knowing that new potential revenue streams could appear out of nowhere; they'd definitely want to always have money ready.

Is anyone else amazed that during the whole Coinbase IPO phase, both all of the hype leading up to and during the IPO day, that almost no one at all brought up the fact that Coinbase is a HIGHLY corrupt organization.  It honestly sickened me to see all of the hype that they were getting yet it wasn't mentioned nearly what so ever of all of the corrupt shit that Coinbase has been involved in since they opened up. Just saying is all.

I knew there has been A LOT of Complaints concerning Coinbase and their laughably bad customer support, but what do you mean by "highly corrupt" specifically? In what way?

The only possible corruption I saw regarding coinbase was insider information and market manipulation during bch drama in 2017
There was some investigation  but I think nothing happened.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/20/16800940/coinbase-bitcoin-cash-fork-insider-trading-probe



They concluded nothing wrong happened:
https://fortune.com/2018/07/24/coinbase-insider-trading/

That's definitely a very interesting and well visualized graphic to represent all the IPO's so far this year. To anyone looking at the statistics, Coinbase was a real money making machine when it launched this year - the fees that they are able to charge bring in huge profits and their first mover (biggest surviving exchange so far) size advantage helps them to dominate the market. Binance must also be raking in the profits with their extortionate withdrawal fees and the amount that they're able to raise from trading - unlike the fairly standard buy/sell functionality of Coinbase. You really have to question if we're in some kind of bubble when you see results like that and it's worth considering that the price has dropped around 25% since launch.

Crypto IPO's are hot right now.

Maybe they might be over inflated, but the stock market seems to overvalue any company that might have crypto associated with it. I read this article years ago so I don't have it on hand, but it was a report how companies can just attach "blockchain" to their identity and public interest in the company increased based on that alone, despite the tech not even being related to block chain. You're seeing the same phenomenon with marijuana stocks as more countries make it legal, so a lot of international commerce with marijuana is going to happen, especially when the US legalizes it outright. Current investors will overvalue weed stocks.

It’s a little weird to see such different companies in comparison, but anyway, I’m not surprised that Coinbase is the leader. It is no secret that demand for cryptocurrencies has grown insanely since the beginning of the pandemic. Naturally, the respective exchange platform has grown in value as well.

I’m not sure if Binance will go public in the nearest future. At least in March 2021, their CEO announced that they don’t plan on doing so (https://www.coindesk.com/binance-will-not-go-public). I don't think this would’ve been the best time for Binance to go public anyway, especially with Coinbase on the move. In addition, they ought to regain their reputation after the hacks first.

Albeit being a rough year, we still see a massive interest in crypto IPOs in 2021. It's really incredible to also put things into perspective on how well Coinbase, a company focusing on cryptocurrencies, bested some of these companies that are 'in demand' or have an already established market and audience in the world. I personally think that Coinbase isn't worth that much ($86 billion), but investors think otherwise and they see potential in a tech/finance company that started a lot of firsts in this industry.


Binance will catch up, though with the way they handle things, it would be a long ass time before they get people and enough deep pockets to take them seriously in this route. Too many shady practices still being done on the platform, and I don't think it invites people to invest in one's company.

There does seem to be a lot of issues with binance that people have, and while some are probably just random, others about counter trading and some manipulations would be something I can't disagree with as I'm seeing more signs from their website that they do those sorts of things.

They could and probably should get to the point where they're a bit more stable though - I imagine their teams are quite fragmented though too with them trying to do all of the hiring themselves and not seeming to look for companies that can handle stuff in places they're not accustomed to.

In relation to Coinbase, there's a good reason why we see some pumps lately.
Coinbase is buying $500 million in crypto and investing future profits into a crypto portfolio (https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/20/coinbase-is-buying-500-million-in-crypto-and-investing-future-profits-into-a-crypto-portfolio.html)
And I think with its IPO, being valuated that much, they're contributing well to the market and having a good share to its growth. In continuation, they're likely to increase its value overtime.

It's just a matter of time before CZ will go for an IPO.


And maybe the KYC mandatory that we've seen today is one step further for the "structural changes that he said a couple of weeks ago. And for sure he wanted to smoothen everything specially with the US regulators. Won't be surprise if the plan will push forward early next year when the price of bitcoin hits 6 digits at least.

I speculate if Binance launched an IPO, it will overtake Coinbase sooner or later because Binance users is much higher. Coinbase was used mostly by US and UK citizens which is mostly whales, while Binance mostly used by China, third world countries and global except US and UK (though they can use Binance.us but more strict).

But I'm not really sure Binance could easily launch an IPO, they will need to fill many requirement, investigation by SEC and another such politic power.

LOL.. is that even possible? Binance is already traded in the cryptocurrency market (in the form of BNB). Now how can they convert these BNB tokens to shares in mainstream stock exchanges? That may not be impossible, but I suspect it will take a lot of paperwork and formalities. Also, it would e interesting to see in which exchange they will go for the IPO listing. Coinbase is a US-based company and therefore they went for the NASDAQ. However, Binance is based in Cayman Islands and there they don't have a stock exchange.

Coinbase exist here for too long and one of the highly regulated exchange which still offering their services for selected countries, actually I am not a fan of coinbase but this is the first ever IPO in the crypto space which gabe appreciable recognition to the cryptocurrency more. Binance already been the biggest of all the exchanges due to their less KYC features so I don't expect them to plan about IPO in the next few years.

I think given that US has named China as a competition, I don't think that Binance will be able to go public in US since they have a Chinese background and right now, US is a bit paranoid because they're behind when it comes to their competitors like China and USA. @Jawhead999 is right, Binance is going to need a lot of political power. I think Coinbase will dominate the biggest IPO for a little while.

Bnb are essentially bonds, they'll still be bought the same ways - as in binance's statutory buyback - and will still be used for fee reductions (for as long as binance wants them to).

Their market cap is $75bn but I don't know if that's close to what they're worth.

Binance coin would PROBABLY be a better (short term) investment than a stock though as it'll keep pace with the cryptocurrency market better.

Valuing coinbase as a financial institution is wrong. They're 100% a tech stock.  The same way you wouldn't value Square or PayPal as a financial institution because they also are tech stocks.  The current marketcap is 67 billion.  Personally, I'm not interested in that because a lot of future growth is already baked in and they're offering a commodity product (access to crypto) and have to defensive moat to protect the business.  Anyone can come in and beat them on price.  The risk-reward at this valuation isn't there for me.

BNB may be a better investment than the stock. I agree with that part. But I need to ask a very difficult question. Can Binance (with its users mostly from non-US countries) have a market cap that is significantly higher than Coinbase (which has a majority of the users from the US). Right now BNB is having a market cap of $75 billion, while Coinbase is valued at $54 billion. For me it looks like either Binance is overpriced, or Coinbase is undervalued. Maybe the usage of BNB in fee reduction gives it more value.

I'm not surprised it was the biggest, as it's a company that's already known to crypto users, so there's a minimum risk of getting scammed, and they have 56 million users, so a huge community of people behind them. These two things sound promising enough to invest it because reputation + a huge user base almost guarantee the price will skyrocket. But that's a public offering, so it's about selling shares to people. That's what might have gathered attention not only of the crypto community, but of big stock traders as well, since getting into something crypto-related and yet familiar is getting more attractive to them.

Tech stocks have given good returns ever since the pandemic started. Top stocks such as AMZN, FB, TSLA and MSFT have given huge returns during the last 18 months, and I strongly believe that Coinbase also benefitted from the prevailing positive atmosphere. The markets are at all time high now, and a lot of experts claim that a correction is due in the near future. It will be interesting to see how new stocks such as Coinbase perform under such a scenario. And BTW, in case of Coinbase it was not an IPO. They went for direct listing. Please correct me in case I am wrong.

I have to say they dropped pretty quickly afterwards, right now it is like 50 billion or so in marketcap. So, it is not just about having a lot of users or being great, they have an amazing model to make money as well with the trading fee's and that is what most of the wall street people did as well, they just make money based on commission whenever they convince someone to buy a stock but Coinbase is a bit different in which they do not even convince people, people go register an account to do that job themselves.

So, the reason why it was highly valuated and now not so much is the fact that it is a great way to make profit, buy the stock and hold it long enough and they will keep on profiting, the operating costs are not high and the profits are steady and that is what you want from any company or stock you own. It might be down now because it was overvalued, but the idea stands that it is a good stock to own.

Given how "small" Coinbase is compared to Binance in terms of trading volume and customer base (and probably also profitability), I was expecting the stock to drop by a lot. If you compare businesses across a sector, why should Coinbase have a higher valuation than Binance? That didn't make sense to me. Or do you know of any specific reasons why that could be justified?

That's strange. Coinbase claims to have tens of millions of active users, and most of their userbase is from North America/Europe. Binance may be having a higher number of users (but the margin may not be very large), mostly from East Asia. In terms of overall trade volume, Binance has the edge over Coinbase. Taking in to account all these factors, the valuation should be more or less similar for these two. And at this point, Binance is valued 1.5 times higher than Coinbase ($76 billion vs $54 billion).

How did you come to the conclusion that they should be roughly valued similarly?  

#
Name
Exchange Score
Volume(24h)
Avg. Liquidity
Weekly Visits
# Markets
# Coins
Fiat Supported
Volume Graph (7d)
1

Binance

$28,383,863,536 (Vol 24h)

729   (Avg liquidity)

25,870,102 (weekly visits)

1397 (markets)

384 (coins)   

AED, ARS, AUD
and +43 more (including all major currencies)

Coinbase Exchange

$4,006,924,944 (Vol 24h)

588 (Avg liquidity)

3,017,031 (weekly visits)

284 (markets)   

94 (coins)   

USD, EUR, GBP


Isn't the volume the most decisive number here? Which also correlates with the weekly visits as obviously. I would say Binance should in pure numbers be above and beyond Coinbase. Binance will now also get fully regulated. That might be the difference. But I am quite sure in terms of ROI Coinbase is nowhere near Binance.

Add: One factor might be that Coinbase has huge OTC trading volume that is not reflected on CMC.

Trade volumes are always manipulated. Binance has a large number of coins that are outside the top-100 list in their platform, and order books for these coins are distorted. The only accurate way to measure the trade volumes is to measure the withdrawals and deposits that are being made in fiat. And for trading volumes, I would like to compare specific pairs, like BTC/USD and ETH/USD. But the issue with Binance is that they only have BTC/USDT or BTC/BUSD pair instead of BTC/USD (same with Ethereum as well). I would give more weightage to the numbers from BTC/USD trade, to those from BTC/USDT. Because this can be very hard to manipulate.