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Airbnb market cap is at 105 billion and Coinbase is currently at 86. Personally I'm very sceptical that current valuation for Coinbase is justified. It is a gr

Airbnb market cap is at 105 billion and Coinbase is currently at 86. Personally I'm very sceptical that current valuation for Coinbase is justified. It is a great company for sure but there definitely arent similar network effects as with Airbnb. There's plenty of competition in the crypto exchange space.

sekai 6y ago
oh boy, wait until you hear about Tesla
- dang 6y ago
  Please don't post unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments. It causes threads to go to repetitive (and often inflammatory) places, which is a failure mode for HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
paulpauper 6y ago
also airbnb is not dependent on the value of a speculative asset. There will always be demand for rentals.
- kneel 6y ago
  There is 20 trillion of negative yielding debt floating around in govt bonds, luckily we can hedge against these horribly mismanaged house of cards before they fall on us. The demand is real.
  - enjo 6y ago
    Bitcoin is worthless without dollars backing it. It’s because you can turn Bitcoin into dollars that anyone wants it.
    - thebean11 6y ago
      You can make the same argument about any asset class. The path from Bitcoin/gold/real estate/crops to other goods or assets goes through dollars out of convenience (because your destination is purchasable in dollars). Don't confuse convenience with necessity.
      - betterunix2 6y ago
        Actually it is out of necessity on some level. My landlord needs me to pay rent with dollars, because my landlord needs to repay a loan to the bank and the bank will only accept dollars. The bank only accepts dollars because if my landlord defaults on said loans the bank will go to court to resolve the matter, and the courts only deal in dollars. Similarly, we all must pay taxes of one form or another, and we must do so using something the government will accept, which is dollars and not Bitcoin. (You can adjust the currency for whatever country you might be considering if dollars are not the local currency.) Don't kid yourself -- without exchanges of some sort (including payment processors) cryptocurrency is basically worthless.
      - kelnos 6y ago
        The number of things I can exchange dollars for vastly outnumbers the number of things I can exchange Bitcoin for, by orders of magnitude. In this case convenience is necessity, for practical, real-world definitions. Sure, in a theoretical sense, there is no reason why I couldn't use Bitcoin to buy food and clothing, make rent/mortgage payments, buy plane/train/bus tickets, buy furniture, tools, electronics, etc. But the reality is that I can't do it (with some narrow exceptions), and I don't see that materially changing within my lifetime, not to the point where using Bitcoin (or any other up-and-coming cryptocurrency) is more convenient that using fiat currency.
        thebean11 6y ago
        Yes but that would obviously no longer be true if dollars no longer "worked" (let's say 10k% inflation for the sake of argument). There would be _something_ of value that things could be exchanged for.
- kvz 6y ago
  Aren’t they firing a lot of folks due to the pandemic?
  - paulpauper 6y ago
    That was a year ago. Airbnb completely recovered and then some in terms of value. A few metro area like SF and NY were hit , but the overall picture is improving, and such setbacks will imho be temporary.
    - staplers 6y ago
      "Temporary value recovery" interesting way to contradict your original claim. All value fluctuates.
- aphextron 6y ago
  >also airbnb is not dependent on the value of a speculative asset. What do you think US real estate is?
  - nick0garvey 6y ago
    I can live in a house. I can't live in a Bitcoin.
    - brudgers 6y ago
      You can live in a car. You can’t drive a house.
      - knicholes 6y ago
        Motor home, then, to cover both bases.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - anonporridge 6y ago
      Yes, but you also can't take your house with you stored in your brain if you have to flee the country. Bitcoin as chaos insurance (or schmuck insurance as Chamath calls it) is the use case that makes the most sense to me.
      - microtherion 6y ago
        Then again, you rarely have to dig through a garbage dump for your house because you accidentally threw it out: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/15/uk-man-makes-last-ditch-effort-to-recover-lost-bitcoin-hard-drive.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/15/uk-man-makes-last-ditch-effo...
        anonporridge 6y ago
- s8s8discourse 6y ago
  Bold assertion immediately following a pandemic in which the demand for rentals fell to... zero. It took a significant pivot for AirBnB to recover and maintain revenues.
  - kelnos 6y ago
    And yet the demand for rentals is recovering (I know someone whose Airbnb rental is already 85% booked through August), and will recover to previous levels. All that revenue will be back, and Airbnb will be more diversified in its revenue sources. Long-term (even medium-term) I think the pandemic will turn out to be a win for Airbnb.
Grustaf 6y ago
Airbnb doesn't have network effects, the value to users increases pretty linearly with the number of hosts, and doesn't really increase at all with the number of other users.
- Ozzie_osman 6y ago
  That's just cross-side network effects. More users is better for hosts which means more hosts which is better for users which means more users. What you probably have in mind is "direct network effects", more like what you'd see with a chat app or social network (though social networks also have cross-side effects between users and advertisers).
- d3ntb3ev1l 6y ago
  Also ignoring most cities now are banning or highly regulating these illegal hotels in residential neighborhoods Coinbase seems less threatened by regulations
  - jcims 6y ago
    It's more than that in my mind. Coinbase is embracing regulation and leveraging it as a differentiator. They are going to be in a better position than anyone to close the loop to regulatory capture.
  - lmm 6y ago
    Coinbase is hugely threatened by regulations.
    - quickthrower2 6y ago
      They are, but at the same maybe they’ll get big enough to get small fines for big crimes like HSBC helping out the cartels.
      - lmm 6y ago
        I hate this meme. HSBC used their judgement about something for which the law said they had to use their judgement. Then their judgement turned out to be wrong and apparently that's now a crime. Foreign exchange has legitimate use cases, it's not remotely comparable to cryptocurrencies.
mtnGoat 6y ago
you think coinbase is overvalued at those numbers but not airbnb? how do you justify airbnbs?
Galanwe 6y ago
Coinbase is not just a retail exchange for crypto, just like your bank is probably not just a retail bank. There is a whole professional services coinbase for institutional investors, custody, etc that has a huge potential.
throwaway_2047 6y ago
I bet Brian owns a much larger stake on coinbase than on airbnb

sekai 6y ago

oh boy, wait until you hear about Tesla

dang 6y ago
Please don't post unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments. It causes threads to go to repetitive (and often inflammatory) places, which is a failure mode for HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

paulpauper 6y ago

also airbnb is not dependent on the value of a speculative asset. There will always be demand for rentals.

kneel 6y ago
There is 20 trillion of negative yielding debt floating around in govt bonds, luckily we can hedge against these horribly mismanaged house of cards before they fall on us. The demand is real.
- enjo 6y ago
  Bitcoin is worthless without dollars backing it. It’s because you can turn Bitcoin into dollars that anyone wants it.
  - thebean11 6y ago
    You can make the same argument about any asset class. The path from Bitcoin/gold/real estate/crops to other goods or assets goes through dollars out of convenience (because your destination is purchasable in dollars). Don't confuse convenience with necessity.
    - betterunix2 6y ago
      Actually it is out of necessity on some level. My landlord needs me to pay rent with dollars, because my landlord needs to repay a loan to the bank and the bank will only accept dollars. The bank only accepts dollars because if my landlord defaults on said loans the bank will go to court to resolve the matter, and the courts only deal in dollars. Similarly, we all must pay taxes of one form or another, and we must do so using something the government will accept, which is dollars and not Bitcoin. (You can adjust the currency for whatever country you might be considering if dollars are not the local currency.) Don't kid yourself -- without exchanges of some sort (including payment processors) cryptocurrency is basically worthless.
    - kelnos 6y ago
      The number of things I can exchange dollars for vastly outnumbers the number of things I can exchange Bitcoin for, by orders of magnitude. In this case convenience is necessity, for practical, real-world definitions. Sure, in a theoretical sense, there is no reason why I couldn't use Bitcoin to buy food and clothing, make rent/mortgage payments, buy plane/train/bus tickets, buy furniture, tools, electronics, etc. But the reality is that I can't do it (with some narrow exceptions), and I don't see that materially changing within my lifetime, not to the point where using Bitcoin (or any other up-and-coming cryptocurrency) is more convenient that using fiat currency.
      - thebean11 6y ago
        Yes but that would obviously no longer be true if dollars no longer "worked" (let's say 10k% inflation for the sake of argument). There would be _something_ of value that things could be exchanged for.
kvz 6y ago
Aren’t they firing a lot of folks due to the pandemic?
- paulpauper 6y ago
  That was a year ago. Airbnb completely recovered and then some in terms of value. A few metro area like SF and NY were hit , but the overall picture is improving, and such setbacks will imho be temporary.
  - staplers 6y ago
    "Temporary value recovery" interesting way to contradict your original claim. All value fluctuates.
aphextron 6y ago
>also airbnb is not dependent on the value of a speculative asset. What do you think US real estate is?
- nick0garvey 6y ago
  I can live in a house. I can't live in a Bitcoin.
  - brudgers 6y ago
    You can live in a car. You can’t drive a house.
    - knicholes 6y ago
      Motor home, then, to cover both bases.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - anonporridge 6y ago
    Yes, but you also can't take your house with you stored in your brain if you have to flee the country. Bitcoin as chaos insurance (or schmuck insurance as Chamath calls it) is the use case that makes the most sense to me.
    - microtherion 6y ago
      Then again, you rarely have to dig through a garbage dump for your house because you accidentally threw it out: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/15/uk-man-makes-last-ditch-effort-to-recover-lost-bitcoin-hard-drive.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/15/uk-man-makes-last-ditch-effo...
      - anonporridge 6y ago
s8s8discourse 6y ago
Bold assertion immediately following a pandemic in which the demand for rentals fell to... zero. It took a significant pivot for AirBnB to recover and maintain revenues.
- kelnos 6y ago
  And yet the demand for rentals is recovering (I know someone whose Airbnb rental is already 85% booked through August), and will recover to previous levels. All that revenue will be back, and Airbnb will be more diversified in its revenue sources. Long-term (even medium-term) I think the pandemic will turn out to be a win for Airbnb.

Grustaf 6y ago

Airbnb doesn't have network effects, the value to users increases pretty linearly with the number of hosts, and doesn't really increase at all with the number of other users.

Ozzie_osman 6y ago
That's just cross-side network effects. More users is better for hosts which means more hosts which is better for users which means more users. What you probably have in mind is "direct network effects", more like what you'd see with a chat app or social network (though social networks also have cross-side effects between users and advertisers).
d3ntb3ev1l 6y ago
Also ignoring most cities now are banning or highly regulating these illegal hotels in residential neighborhoods Coinbase seems less threatened by regulations
- jcims 6y ago
  It's more than that in my mind. Coinbase is embracing regulation and leveraging it as a differentiator. They are going to be in a better position than anyone to close the loop to regulatory capture.
- lmm 6y ago
  Coinbase is hugely threatened by regulations.
  - quickthrower2 6y ago
    They are, but at the same maybe they’ll get big enough to get small fines for big crimes like HSBC helping out the cartels.
    - lmm 6y ago
      I hate this meme. HSBC used their judgement about something for which the law said they had to use their judgement. Then their judgement turned out to be wrong and apparently that's now a crime. Foreign exchange has legitimate use cases, it's not remotely comparable to cryptocurrencies.

mtnGoat 6y ago

you think coinbase is overvalued at those numbers but not airbnb? how do you justify airbnbs?

Galanwe 6y ago

Coinbase is not just a retail exchange for crypto, just like your bank is probably not just a retail bank. There is a whole professional services coinbase for institutional investors, custody, etc that has a huge potential.

throwaway_2047 6y ago

I bet Brian owns a much larger stake on coinbase than on airbnb