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Perhaps a dumb question: why is Coinbase even entertaining an IPO? Give away shares for fiat money? Isn't that antithetical to what they're trying to do?
by emehex 6y ago
Perhaps a dumb question: why is Coinbase even entertaining an IPO? Give away shares for fiat money? Isn't that antithetical to what they're trying to do?
- willio58 6y agoI don’t think it’s antithetical, going public is a natural step for many companies. It makes the people at the top of the company that much richer. Also in a weird way going public is sort of decentralization because suddenly the people running the company are answering to the shareholders instead of a few key stakeholders.
- Proziam 6y agoI'm someone who used crypto to buy my current residence. Until you and your staff can pay their rent and taxes in BTC, fiat money is the only real money. That said, I have my doubts about the 'purity' of any crypto company.
- globular-toast 6y agoMaybe you're confused about what they're trying to do. I'm pretty sure they're trying to get rich and nothing else.
- qeternity 6y ago21st century Levi Strauss
- bob33212 6y agoThey are trying to "Exit". That is what they call a IPO or a Sale in startups. They get paid with cash, then they buy houses, stocks, bitcoin, cars with that cash. The "Mission" of Coinbase exists because they don't want to say "Our mission is to build a 100 billion dollar company and then cash out" it sounds better and feels better to say that you are democratizing and decentralizing power for the people.
- vmception 6y agoA direct listing is markedly different than an IPO or sale. It should just be added to your list of examples.
- dehrmann 6y agoEspecially when you're running a company that facilitates the exchange of high-price trading cards. If those cards are popular and expensive, and the market thinks you're worth 22% as much as JP Morgan, it's a great time to cash out. They might be eyeing a direct listing because institutional investors know that price is ridiculous, but also because they see Coinbase as something of a competitor, so the only interest will be from retail investors.
- silexia 6y agoThe three comments preceding mine are brilliant at cutting through the pump and dump hype around Coinbase.
- alasano 6y agoIf somehow you could dissociate the tech from the currency aspect, would you still qualify cryptocurrencies as "high-price trading cards"? I wonder because where some people are attracted to crypto because of the monetary gain and then learn about the technology, others are turned off by the constant focus on the $ value and then don't learn about the technology. I truly find it fascinating to imagine our future running on a crypto layer. I'm not talking about bitcoin specifically due to its inherent limitations (which may or may not be bypassed through second layer solutions). But playing around with some of the DeFi stuff, seeing directed acyclic graph ledgers perform at 10k tps and seeing projects which truly can bring value to people really gets me hyped about these things working seamlessly together. The internet is not worth a lot because of the protocols underneath it but because of what people have built on it over the years. These various cryptocurrencies interacting with each other more and more gives me the same impression. Every boom/bust cycle crypto goes through brings in more creativity from people who are building on this new world and I have trouble finding fault with it. Would love to hear some arguments on how this view of things could be biased or perhaps wrong.
- spoonjim 6y agoIf you built a giant business trading Beanie Babies would you want to cash it out for Beanie Babies or greenbacks?