Now that Coinbase has been valued at double digit billions, we have to wait and see what investors like Warren Buffett have to say about it.
Its Coinbase's value as a company and it has nothing to do with bitcoin / crypto. People buy Coinbase's stock hoping the value of the company would take off because it is a company that deals with crypto in particular and crypto is the hot stuff right now
You said it yourself. Coinbase is a company that holds, sells and markets cryptocurrencies. There whole success is built on top of Bitcoin's success and marketing efforts towards convincing people to invest in cryptocurrencies. They, in turn, derive fees from the users actions. The correct classification for coinbase would probably be that they are a service provider and not really a crypto company themselves. When companies giving crypto services become valuable, then that value is accrued from the value of cryptocurrencies themselves.
A lot of people said above, and i agree, that Bitcoiners shouldn't be concerned what Buffett thinks about it. That was a rhetoric statement as to what stance would nocoiners take in the face of this valuation, if it sustains and grows in the long term. The traditional nocoiners always give the argument of "no intrinsic value". What i meant with WB's example was, would they be willing to put more of an effort and try to "understand" the value rather than try to brush it aside? That was the point and it doesn't really needs pontifications about how Warren Buffet matters or doesn't matter to Bitcoin..
Of course, coinbase isn't the first crypto company on NASDAQ. Still, its the first one with a huge user base and a large presence within the US mainland. This quote from an
NYT article sums up what coinbase listing implies for nocoiners and normies out there:
Coinbase’s listing answers the question “Is crypto a real thing?” said Bradley Tusk, a venture capital investor whose firm, Tusk Venture Partners, backed Coinbase. “Any industry that can launch an I.P.O. of this size is without a doubt a real thing, and it’s proven by the market.”
And slowly we're starting to switch from banks to banks...
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Maybe we need to temper our expectations from Bitcoin. A company like Coinbase brings users onboard through marketing and hand-holding. It gives a lot of people the assurance they need before jumping into the unknown. A percentage of those users will surely slowly gain access to the understanding of private keys. With the incessant media attention, this point was always going to come for Bitcoin.
Maybe what you want is for the Binance plan to come to fruition like you highlighted in one of your own posts i replied to
here.
