Coinbase has officially filed the necessary paperwork to enlist its stock on NASDAQ, a huge leap forward for the first big public offering for a company operating in the cryptocurrency industry.
In an accompanying letter to investors, the company founder Brian Armstrong described cryptocurrency as a balancing force on modern financial markets — and Coinbase as the firm at the front of that transformation. “The existing financial system is prevalent with high fees, disproportionate access, and barriers to invention,” the letter reads.
The filed documents reveal the company’s finances in unseen detail, including a remarkably profitable 2020 propelled by a huge rise in the price rate of Bitcoin. Coinbase accumulated $1.2 billion in revenue in the previous calendar year for a profit of $323 million. This is the first instance when the company has reported an annual profit.
Coinbase had 43 million authenticated users as of December 2020, with 2.9 million users conducting transactions every month and an aggregate of $91 billion of assets held in customer accounts. Overall, the company has managed transactions worth $457 billion since its creation till today.
We remind that a recent comparative study established that Coinbase now rivals major banks in terms of market capitalization.
