Coinbase announced that its SEC filing has been declared effective, paving the way for a direct listing in April.
Coinbase has officially announced that it will go public through a direct listing. The exchange made the announcement in a blog posted on April 2. The listing will take place on the NASDAQ under the ticker "COIN" on April 14.
We're happy to announce that earlier today, the SEC declared our S-1 registration statement effective and that we expect our direct listing to occur on April 14, 2021, with our Class A common stock trading on the @NASDAQ under the ticker symbol COIN.https://t.co/cwRZWmj9Pv
- Coinbase (@coinbase) April 1, 2021
A few weeks earlier, Coinbase had applied for registration with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The regulator declared it effective on April 1. The exchange says it expects them to be listed as Class A shares, which usually means they have more advantages when it comes to voting rights, dividends and other aspects.
A few weeks prior to this post, the San Francisco stock exchange was conducting private equity sales, resulting in a staggering $ 90 billion valuation.
As popular as it is, other exchanges offer competition. These include the regulation-focused Gemini and Asia's dominant Binance. The exchange market is still quite young and there are likely to be many ups and downs in the coming years.
However, Coinbase is not without its drawbacks. The exchange has been criticized for numerous incidents over the past 18 months.
CEO Brian Armstrong has faced extensive criticism for an open letter describing the company's intolerance of political expression at work. The situation got worse when the New York Times ran an article in which current and former employees claimed racial discrimination.
Who else will go public?
Perhaps the development makes Coinbase the largest crypto company in the world right now. Several companies are considering going public, but none has the same clout as Coinbase.
As many as eight companies are considering the possibility of entering the stock exchange. This includes Gemini, which is also quite popular in the US. Another well-known name in the industry is the eToro social trading platform.
The huge interest in public listings indicates that companies want to take advantage of the interest in the cryptocurrency market.