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Coinbase announces proposed direct listing
- wmf 6y agoWhy isn't Coinbase doing a security token offering?
- reducesuffering 6y agoReal money for me, not for thee.
- er4hn 6y agoreducesuffering, thank you for making me chuckle. In keeping with the grand theory that cryptocoins allow the rediscovery of financial regulations and procedures from first principles, the following could happen: * Coinbase uses the funding to get to the point where they can release a "dual currency" set of stock. One set of stock based on being traditional shares purchased with USD, one set based on being a tied to a "share token" purchased with whatever people choose to exchange (but initially sold by Coinbase for bitcoin). Presumably they would have voting rights per share tied to the conversion between bitcoin to usd. * The normal shares are regulated in the boring SEC way. * The share tokens are regulated according to wild west tech rules. Tokens are stolen, token private keys are lost, exchanges rediscover circuit breakers on facilitating token trades, etc. I think there is also a second story if Coinbase were to release share tokens: Many scamcoins are essentially a way to buy shares in some service that does not fully exist yet, but has great upside potential. If this super simplistic description sounds like investing in stocks, then watching Coinbase share tokens toe the line between "scam coin" and "real deal Wall St. asset" will be an interesting experience.
- wmf 6y agoa way to buy shares in some service that does not fully exist yet, but has great upside potential Time for a SPAC token offering!
- sjtindell 6y agoThe quantity of potential capital raised I would assume.
- eganist 6y agoOstensibly not enough faith in security tokens as a method of managing shares. Still surprising from a strategic angle considering an acquisition of a platform like Carta could have given them a head start.
- devops000 6y agoI guess it's a proof they don't believe it.
- chrisco255 6y agoBecause there's already a lot of network effects built in to the existing exchanges and crypto infrastructure for trading securities is still immature, albeit promising.
- RangerScience 6y agoWhat's out their right now in the way of crypt infra for securities / stock trading? I predict that as the news digests GAMESTONKS, we're gonna see a decent amount of talk about crypto and a block-chain based stock market. But I'm far out of the crypto loop these days so IDK what the contenders are.
- wmf 6y agohttps://www.tzero.com/ https://www.tzero.com/ is a major one from the former Overstock CEO.
- zionic 6y agoI suspect the plan is to raise tons of fiat then pump their BTC holdings via grayscale.
- kinghajj 6y agoMy god, that would be amazing. 1. Coinbase raises money from the IPO. 2. Coinbase takes some of that money and gives it to Grayscale. 3. Grayscale uses the money to buy cryptocurrency... On Coinbase! Not only do Coinbase shares appreciate from the increased value of assets on their balance sheet, but they earn some of their money back from fees, too. Just make sure that steps #1 and #2 have some delay, after any lock-up period. And since Grayscale can only divest from its funds for fees and doesn't allow redemption, more cryptocurrency tokens get "locked" in the funds indefinitely, unable to affect the spot price.
- deeeeplearning 6y agoSo what you're saying is Coins go up?
- Bombthecat 6y agoSo, just like a stock buy back, just a bit more complicated..
- kgc 6y agoThey don't need Grayscale. They could just buy BTC themselves.
- devops000 6y agoWe invented BTC for not having a central bank, now the Central Bank could be Coinbase.
- lostmsu 6y agoBut it is not central in any way.
- xiphias2 6y ago
- Triv888 6y agoYeah, fuck the stock market at this point.
- bdcravens 6y agoBecause it is a technology company built with traditional fiat investments.
- aresant 6y agoIf there's one thing to take away from the GME debacle it is that organized, incentivized retail investors can make a stock do crazy things. Now take that and multiply it by a factorial with the general interest, shilling, and breadth of the crypto community! Recipe for INSANITY around this listing.
- 1996 6y agoIf this listing happens, BTC will go above 150k in 2021. Too many people with money and time on their hands.
- slickrick216 6y agoGood free markets should be free. No government bailouts no problem.
- marcinzm 6y agoThen eventually things implode, society collapses, a dictator takes over after claiming they will help the starving masses and so on. Starving masses who have lost their life savings do not make for a good place to live even if you avoid being one of them. Society should be protected from the fallout of capitalism to a reasonable degree.
- anewaccount2021 6y agoIf you lost your life savings on GME, you deserve to starve edit: the only way you could be losing your life savings on GME is with a dumb, arrogant short position. yes, you should starve...isn't this what a short sale is anyway? A bet that someone else will starve?
- marcinzm 6y agoPersonally I prefer to not be stabbed to death by a starving person who lost their life savings on GME so they can steal $10 from my wallet. Massive societal implosions tend to have a large blast radius.
- jaywalk 6y agoObviously this was planned well in advance, but what a day to make this announcement.
- MuffinFlavored 6y agoHow long until Coinbase blocks the buying of popular tickers too because powerful hedge funds tell them?
- meowkit 6y agoNot likely because the market makers will have to compete with DeFi on chain.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- bdcravens 6y agoCoinbase has frozen trading of various cryptos before.
- blhack 6y agoThey have already paused trading during periods of high turmoil. When bcash was announced, for instance. I think that actually set their standard for "open the market in 'post only' mode for a period before actually starting trading".
- mxd3 6y agoThe term "Bcash" is a social engineering attack against big blocks[0]. This attack has been so successful, the name still shows on Wikipedia[1]. [0] https://medium.com/@jonaldfyookball/why-some-people-call-bitcoin-cash-bcash-this-will-be-shocking-to-new-readers-956558da12fb https://medium.com/@jonaldfyookball/why-some-people-call-bit... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_Cash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_Cash
- 6y ago
- rblatz 6y agoOne more company off the shortlist of potential targets for the PSTH SPAC. Looking more and more like it’s going to be something like Subway.
- devops000 6y agoThey will be correlated with BTC/USD
- paxys 6y agoNope, I doubt it. It's much easier to sell shovels and still benefit whether the price goes up or down.
- devops000 6y agoIf price will reach 1,200$ in next three years I think the volume will be much lower
- hntrader 6y agoThis will be the main mechanism positively correlating BTC price with Coinbase's stock price. The correlation will be weaker than that with MARA and RIOT though.
- jy1 6y agoGold price dictates how many shovels are being sold. Similarly BTC prices dictates gross volumes.
- xiphias2 6y agoAt the time a lot of gold was mined in California, the gold supply increased a lot as well. With Bitcoin the supply is algorithmically limited.
- gaspard234 6y agoWell real world gold is also limited. The California mountains used to be rich with huge veins of gold and now while you can still find some in these places it is very rare compared to the 1800's.
- paxys 6y agoTrading activity can still be high regardless of new supply, and that is what Coinbase is capitalizing on.
- DSingularity 6y agoWe already knew this, right? What is new?
- azinman2 6y agohttps://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/
- DSingularity 6y agoumm I am actually genuinly trying to understand what changed... I thought they already told us they are planning to do an IPO.
- meowkit 6y agoIf you thought they were doing an IPO then this post will tell you they are planning a direct listing. They sent a draft in December for this, so yes we knew, but now its official.
- DSingularity 6y agoConflating the two because I didn’t know the difference. I have never bought shares when they open because of volatility so I never pay attention! Anyhow, thanks for the explanations.
- legym 6y agoWhat are the odds of this. The cofounder of reddit, Alexis Ohanian, owns a capital firm called Initialized Capital. That firm owns coinbase. https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-announces-proposed-direct-listing-3a52c4298ccc https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-announces-proposed-direct...
- iandanforth 6y agoDon't forget - This company actively removed employees who were willing to stand up against societal ills.* *Yes I know this makes some people like them more.
- px43 6y agoFrom what I recall, it's more like they said they aren't going to take public stands on divisive political issues, and they offered generous separation packages to anyone who had a problem with that. No one was discouraged against getting politically active on their own time, and no one was "removed". https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2020/10/08/60-employees-leave-coinbase-over-ceos-pledge-to-be-apolitical https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2020/10/08/60-emp... As someone who has never lived in the bay area, it was kind of surreal to see employees expecting their company to get involved in amplifying their own personal political preferences. I've always been reasonably politically active, and had fairly liberal coworkers who, even if not politically active, at least believe similarly. I've always thought that work hours are for working though, and political activism has always seemed like more of an "after hours" activity. It's nice when a company says they're in support of one thing or another, but it doesn't really mean anything without human boots on the ground willing to put in the work to make positive change happen. Corporate PR press releases always seemed really insincere anyway, so I don't get why people would be upset when some company decides that they're not going to do them.
- formercoder 6y agoCurious what the accounting rules are around their BTC on the balance sheet. Would be wild if they had to mark to market.
- fortydegrees 6y agoSlightly off topic but can anyone explain to me why a massive company like coinbase uses Medium as a blogging platform/software? Why are they not hosting the blog within their own ecosystem/site?
- yepthatsreality 6y agoTrendiness.
- mdorazio 6y agoThe vast majority of the population is not at all like HN readers and doesn't even know what Coinbase is. Blogging on Medium gives them much better exposure and reach to non-crypto people who might become interested in them because it popped up on their Medium feed vs. on the Coinbase blog.
- pinko 6y agoThe vast majority of the population has a Medium feed?
- duxup 6y ago>doesn't even know what Coinbase is. I kinda wonder about that. I've been INUNDATED by Coinbase advertisements on mobile apps and etc talking about incentives for learning what they do and etc. They seem to really be pushing to get the general public on board.
- lozf 6y agoPerhaps true, but conversely you could also argue that the sheer number of scams and frauds in the Cryptocurrency space that had medium blogs might also put people off!
- hbosch 6y agoSame reason companies use Twitter and Facebook.
- nisten 6y agoFrom a technical point of view yes, your own hosted static site is way more efficient, you have more control over the stack, scaling, better metrics, security etc, etc. From a business point of view it's more like...who the f*ck cares what you use? Did they read it? Yes? Good, move on.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- divs1210 6y agoCoinbase can be the next Robinhood. It will be much better if the crypto community moved to decentralized exchanges like Bisq.
- xiphias2 6y agoUniswap is already huge. For Bisq to succeed governments needs to clamp down on central exchanges, but so far that is not happening.
- boring_twenties 6y agoUniswap can only trade ERC-20 tokens, though.
- dannyw 6y agoThe tokenisation of everything will happen; much like securitisation. You already have WBTC (wrapped Bitcoin).
- boring_twenties 6y agoNot everything. A wrapped Monero wouldn't make much sense.
- mxd3 6y agoCan you really call Bisq decentralized when they've pulled moves like this: https://github.com/bisq-network/proposals/issues/61 https://github.com/bisq-network/proposals/issues/61
- divs1210 6y agoUmm, yes? BCH is a shitcoin, and if you disagree, you can always fork Bisq. That is the whole point.
- 6y ago
- throwaway803453 6y agoGiven the hype, the most likely scenario is a > 2X price spike in the first few minutes of trading regardless of the initial market cap ($100B+?). For those of us who believe that, what is the best strategy for purchasing shares ? It's doubtful brokers will allow market orders the previous night since the ticker might not yet exist, and if one places a market order during the first few minutes the cynic in me predicts a retail trader will get the worst deal.
- taurath 6y agoThis is always how it works. Institutionals always get first dibs (and the middle, and the last)
- Triv888 6y agoDo you see anything wrong with that?
- hntrader 6y agoAfter a new listing, retail can buy at the same instant as institutions, as long as the retail broker allows it, and many do.
- brainflake 6y agoWell not necessarily... didn't google use a dutch auction 15 years ago?
- purple_ferret 6y agoIf they were smart, they'd price it like at 2 dollars a share
- mancerayder 6y agoThe AirBNB listing showed that banks favor their friends and clients in an IPO, when the price surged well before the debut allowed us Little People to buy. A direct listing would be cool and I hope they pursue that.
- ttobbaybbob 6y agoAlternatively - Airbnb selected investors that they knew would hold the stock and support their long-term vision for the product/brand. Those investors being inclined to hold, did not sell, yielding a relatively small float that was massively outstripped by demand, causing the price to skyrocket. Maybe some of those investors were friends of the bankers and cashed out but that would only be (a small) part of the story
- mancerayder 6y agoRight. The selected investors that doubled the stock price before opening bell on day 1.
- reverend_gonzo 6y agoThat’s the standard. However, Airbnb allocated a number of shares to its own hosts, and a lot of Little People were able to partake in that if they were on the ball.
- itisit 6y agoMeh. 7% allocation. Like most charitable efforts by companies, optics first, generosity much further down the list.
- borland 6y agoLOL Isn't the whole point of cryptocurrency to produce an alternative to the current financial system? Coinbase entering the traditional stock-market is a flat-out rejection of that; They're just another bank, except they trade in ponzi schemes rather than government-backed currency. Awful
- slickrick216 6y agoYup but coinbase and binance regularly stop trading to stop pumps in the crypto market. The thing is in crypto there’s DEXs and DEFI. Coinbase and binance are doomed long term. If you haven’t look into uniswap and 1inch.
- nelsonmandela 6y agoCan you use uniswap or 1inch as a fiat onramp?
- meowkit 6y agoI do not believe there are currently any dencentralized onramps for exchanging fiat for any crypto directly. Though I would wager this is an issue with banks not supporting smart contracts in a way that would allow automated withdrawals and deposits from/to the crypto networks.
- slickrick216 6y agoNo and this is a problem. My own personal opinion is that once enough value is ramped then it grows and grows. I think once you see payroll in crypto at a Fortune 500 it’ll be a truly transitory moment.
- gogopuppygogo 6y agoCoinbase is the future of finance. Monero (and other privacy coins) are the future of DeFi.
- slickrick216 6y ago
- jonplackett 6y agoMy shower thought the other day: How much money would Coinbase have, if instead of building the company they had just bought Bitcoin back in 2012 with their seed money? I think it had dropped to about $7.50 around then.
- qixxiq 6y agoWould bitcoin be where it is today without Coinbase? Not to say it's impossible, but their work and approach definitely helped bring Bitcoin to the masses.
- jonplackett 6y agoYeah true. My point is more that I find it a bit sad that 'just buying bitcoin' rather than doing work paid better than basically any work anyone has done since 2012, even building insanely successful startups.
- meowster 6y agoSame reason why the 10,000 BTC pizza was necessary. If no one ever bought anything with Bitcoin, Bitcoin would remain worthless.
- mlthoughts2018 6y agoThis is still a highly debated thesis. Just using BTC to store value away from a volatile fiat currency and eventually exchange for a different, more stable currency, is another candidate for the underlying valuation model, no widespread medium of exchange beyond currency trading needed. If you live in Venezuela, converting to BTC even if you cannot buy anything with it but perhaps Columbian or Brazilian currency at a slight loss, is a hugely valuable capability, with significant advantages over both traditional fiat currency exchanges and custodial stores of value like gold. What is the total global demand for cryptocurrency for this use case? Certainly not anywhere close to the total market cap of first world fiat currencies, but also probably still much higher than today’s total market cap of BTC. This stands in contrast to smart contract and d-app marketplace currency like ETH, which has a completely different hypothetical valuation model.
- funkisjazz 6y agoShows how much they trust what they're selling I guess. If BTC and ETH are just a replacement for visa and mastercard, they've done a good job, in that they've driven visa and mastercard to be so fast and cheap that it's essentially impossible for any blockchain based solution to be faster or cheaper per transaction. Heck, my visa card pays me 0.3% nowadays. So what's the purpose of crypto if it's centralized by a company like coinbase that's regulated by the SEC and all other US law ? I'm not trying to be a crazy anarcho libertarian here, I'm just saying that the only person for which crypto makes sense is fundamentally, in this day and age, and anarchist or libertarian, or both. But either of those are not holding crypto with a company that wants to be listed on a public us exchange... so who is !?
- opreturn 6y ago> Heck, my visa card pays me 0.3% nowadays. Does your visa pay the merchants too? If banks/cards are are still charging merchants 2-3%, then some of that is passed on to us users as well (just not explicitly)
- funkisjazz 6y agoThat is true, and you are right on this front. That being said, I do have a business accepting card payments and the 2-3% for me is closer to 0.1% past bank fees. But you're right that from the merchant's perspective, depending on country (e.g. the US) things can be worst. Then again, from the merchant's perspective cryptos seem to have much larger downsides, after all there's a reason why they aren't widely used, and lack of good supplied for crypto is larger than lack of people willing to use them.
- xur17 6y ago> That being said, I do have a business accepting card payments and the 2-3% for me is closer to 0.1% past bank fees. Are you saying that you only pay 0.1% in fees for accepting credit cards? Is this in the US? If so, please tell me whom because that's an insanely good deal, and they are surely losing money. Some other pieces you aren't including - credit cards are prone to fraud. Despite paying 2-3% in fees to banks, merchants have to build systems to limit this, and pay to refund any fraudulent charges. Crypto allows for a basically instant settlement that looks very much like a cash transaction.
- desertblues 6y agoThey should focus on eng foundations. Frontent is nice and all but I've had double charges, frequent overloaded servers and an account lockout experience. For a company that charges hefty fees like they do that's unacceptable. Venting here. Sure, ipo will be great.
- LockAndLol 6y agoWhat does this mean for people investing small amounts (~1k) in crypto with Coinbase? Is there additional risk (beyond crypto prices dropping) like Coinbase deciding to simply close accounts in order to get funds in times of trouble due to the stock market acting up? Would private wallets become more advisable?
- shawabawa3 6y agoThat doesn't make sense and isn't how the stock market works Stock prices dropping effect companies only indirectly, in that it may make it harder to secure loans or raise capital through issuing shares
- Zetaphor 6y agoRegardless of current or future happenings with Coinbase, a private wallet is always advisable. If you don't own the keys, you don't own the coins.
- phreack 6y agoDoes anyone know how long these kinds of reviews last until passed? Getting into this will be a bloodbath, and I wonder if it'll be with or without notice.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]