FreeCryptoCurrency.Me

Quick Take

• Coinbase’s direct listing signifies a new chapter for the firm in which it will need to rely on its corporate development team to strategize how it will maintain and warrant its market share in a highly competitive market
• Q1′ 21 was Coinbase’s most active investment quarter ever with 22 investments, eclipsing its previous high in Q4′ 18 
• An increase in M&A activity by the firm should be expected to acquire talent and introduce new service lines. Potential verticals include: NFTs/Gaming, International Exchanges, Information Services, and Credit & Lending

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Trading of crypto exchange Coinbase’s shares on the Nasdaq exchange has begun at an initial price of $381, and as of press time the price has climbed above $400.

Coinbase’s historic market debut via direct listing attracted significant media attention on Wednesday, especially in light of developing reports about the indicated share price. 

Coinbase’s debut price of $381 means that it opened at a market capitalization of $99.5 billion. At the time of writing, shares are trading hands at $415.

The development marks a milestone in Coinbase’s long-in-the-making public debut, the plan for which it officially disclosed in late January. Though other crypto-centric firms have gone public in the past, Coinbase’s direct listing signifies a wholly new degree of scale, capturing interest from mainstream investment firms and market watchers. Indeed, retail market service providers have moved in preparation to take advantage of some of the anticipated demand, including from investors beyond the U.S. 

The price of bitcoin also hit a new all-time high above the $63,000 mark ahead of Wednesday’s direct listing. At press time, the price of bitcoin is trading at about $63,680.

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

The U.S. Senate has officially confirmed Gary Gensler as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The final tally was 53-45, falling largely along party lines. Opposition to Gensler’s candidacy was limited throughout earlier proceedings; Republicans had made comments of concern for the US capital markets as part of general objections of the Biden administration’s plans to make issues like climate change a greater part of the SEC’s purview, but Gensler’s credentials received broad respect. Gensler received a 14-10 committee vote in March that cleared the way for today’s confirmation.

Gensler served as the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission during the Obama years. In that capacity, he spearheaded the implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act, particularly the law’s restrictions on the swaps market. Subsequently, Gensler joined the faculty of MIT, where he taught classes on subjects that included digital assets and blockchain technology.

The question of which cryptocurrencies qualify as securities is, therefore, a high stakes one. Consequently, the crypto industry has been monitoring Gensler’s nomination process closely.

After a vote to move forward with that nomination on Tuesday evening, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce released a new version of her planned safe harbor for initial coin offerings, a move that set the stage for more crypto-related deliberations within the U.S. securities market regulatory agency.

In the wake of Gensler’s confirmation, the agency’s existing commissioners issued a congratulatory statement.

“A warm congratulations to Gary Gensler on his Senate confirmation to become Chair of the SEC. He will be joining a dedicated staff that works tirelessly day in and day out on behalf of investors and our markets. We welcome him back to public service and look forward to working together to execute our vital mission,” they said,

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon touched on the importance of bitcoin and cryptocurrency during the bank’s earnings call Wednesday morning, indicating how central the market has become for Wall Street’s top banks. 

“I also want to touch on the topics of cryptocurrency blockchain and the digitization of money,” he began, saying:

“Central banks are looking at digital currencies, working to apply this technology to the local markets and determine the longer term impact on global payment systems. Also significant focus on cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, where the trajectory is less clear as market participants evaluate their possibility as a store of value.”

Goldman Sachs recently made headlines for suggesting it would offer clients of its private wealth division access to bitcoin-related products. 

“We continue to look for ways to expand our capabilities to support our clients needs,” Solomon said, according to a transcript obtained by The Block.

Still, Solomon said that while the bank can’t trade bitcoin on a principal basis, cryptocurrencies are “important to the future of global financial systems.”

As for Goldman’s plans in the retail crypto market, it doesn’t look like the bank is going to be operating in that space anytime soon, according to Solomon. 

“At the moment we are not focused on offering a crypto wallet,” he said responding to a question about how Goldman’s Marcus brand could capitalize on the current activity around bitcoin. “With respect to crypto payment systems … we’ve been much more focused on the institutional side,” Solomon went on to say.

Correction: An earlier version of this report incorrectly attributed comments about bitcoin and gold to Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon. The quote has been removed from this report. 

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

An indicative price for Coinbase shares has been set, The Block has learned.

According to a source familiar with the situation, the quotation window for Coinbase’s market debut kicked off at 10:10 am EST with an indicative price of $340 a share—much higher than the $250 reference price announced on Tuesday. Bloomberg first reported the news.

Still, that figure is considerably lower than the nearly $600 price point that COIN was trading at pre-public debut on FTX. Contracts trading on the Asia-based venue fell to $463 at the time of writing. 

At $340 a share, Coinbase would have a valuation of approximately $88.84 billion, based on the 261.3 million shares of common stock disclosed to the SEC earlier this week.

As previously reported by The Block, Coinbase will make its public market debut in the early afternoon. A source said that it would be a couple of hours until the official first trade after the opening bell.

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Crypto mining pool F2Pool has coded a headline from The New York Times into the first bitcoin block it mined after Coinbase’s landmark direct listing on Tuesday.

F2Pool mined the block height 679,187 shortly after Coinbase’s Nasdaq listing on 13:30 UTC time and rooted a March 10 headline in the coinbase transaction from The New York Times on the U.S. government’s trillion dollar stimulus plan in its latest attempt to boost the economy.

The text of the message, which will stay in the bitcoin blockchain forever, follows the fish emoji of F2Pool and reads: “NYTimes 10/Mar/21 House Gives Final Approval to Biden’s $1.9T Pandemic Relief Bill.”

While the move is to remark Coinbase’s direct listing on Nasdaq as the world’s first crypto exchange stock, the message that F2Pool chose also resonates with what bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto marked down in the network’s genesis block with a similar format and ideology: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.”

It also follows the same effort by F2Pool in the last block before the bitcoin halving last year, where it coded an April 9 headline again from the New York Times: “With $2.3T Injection, Fed’s Plan Far Exceeds 2008 Rescue.”

“The global pandemic is spreading, and printing money is widely used as an attempt to stimulate the economy to ease the pressure of the crisis, but an increase in the money supply also leads to an increase in inflation,” the firm said in a statement shared with The Block, adding:

“In this context, the hedging possibilities of cryptocurrency against traditional finance have become more prominent. Coinbase’s IPO demonstrates investor confidence in the prospects of cryptocurrency, and it is also an important step in cryptocurrency moving toward the mainstream.”

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Asset manager VanEck has launched a new exchange-traded fund (ETF) on Nasdaq that aims to track companies working in the digital asset space or those that have exposure to the nascent asset class. 

The ETF, dubbed Digital Transformation ETF, would provide exposure to various companies in the digital assets space, including crypto exchanges, miners, payment gateways, hardware, and technology providers.

The fund, however, will not invest in cryptocurrencies directly or indirectly through derivatives, said VanEck. The ETF has a ticker symbol of DAPP.

DAPP would seek to track the performance of the MVIS Global Digital Assets Equity Index. The index would include companies that generate or have the potential to generate at least 50% of their revenues from digital assets projects or have at least 50% of its assets invested in direct digital asset holdings or digital asset projects, said VanEck.

“We as a firm have long believed in the utility and viability of digital assets as an asset class, and we are thrilled to be providing investors with exposure to companies powering the digital transformation,” said Ed Lopez, managing director and head of ETF products at VanEck.

VanEck also filed for a bitcoin ETF last December. This is the company’s second attempt to get approval for the ETF from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The SEC acknowledged VanEck’s application last month and has to announce a decision later this month. The SEC could either approve or deny the application or extend the review period.

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Trading apps in Europe and the United Kingdom are poised to launch Coinbase shares in anticipation of the crypto exchange’s direct on Nasdaq listing later today.

Representatives of London-based digital bank Revolut and neobroker Freetrade told The Block that trading in Coinbase shares will be available for retail investors as soon as the company is listed. Nextmarkets, a Cologne-based neobroker, will also begin offering the stock.

“Coinbase has managed to build a product that is easy to use and properly regulated at the same time. Compliance is a crucial argument in today’s crypto world, especially for institutional investors,” said Manuel Heyden, co-founder and CEO of Nextmarkets.

Heyden said the “crypto hype” has helped Nextmarkets to run profitably during the last few quarters. The platform’s customers will be able to trade Coinbase both physically, as a share via the stock exchange, as well as with leverage, he added.

Surging crypto prices coupled with slicker access to stock markets powered by apps like Robinhood may represent a perfect storm for the Coinbase listing.

Lior Messika, founder of the investment firm Eden Block, said the listing represents a “broader, bolder adoption” of crypto. “For the first time in capital markets history, investors will have the ability to gain exposure into a growing ecosystem, not just a collection of assets,” he added.

Enhanced access to the stock market has also given retail investors – when marshaled by online communities – unprecedented power to influence share prices, as seen when the subreddit Wall Street Bets sent GameStop shares skyrocketing earlier this year.

But Max Rothery, VP of community at finance information app Finimize, thinks that’s a good thing.

“In order to make informed investment decisions, you have to learn by doing. Giving retail investors the opportunity to participate in these zeitgeist moments can be a great learning experience,” he remarked, going on to say:

“From what we’re seeing retail investors are expecting volatility, but believe in the long-term prospects of Coinbase. As long as people don’t take undue risk, we fully support retail investors becoming shareholders in companies they believe in.”

Coinbase Global Inc. will begin trading under ticker COIN later today. The shares were assigned a reference price of $250 on April 13, implying a valuation of roughly $63.7 billion. But investors will have to wait until trading begins to get a better sense of the company’s true valuation. Coinbase shares changed hands at a valuation of roughly $90 billion during a private auction in early March.

In the United States, Robinhood is also set to offer trading in the stock, according to a person close to the company.

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Crypto exchange Bybit today announced the launch of BalanceX, the first of its series of Balance Booster events, giving traders opportunities to generate risk-free annualized yield on their trading account’s wallet balance.

Flexible Terms, Maximum Returns

Bybit will release limited quantities yield vouchers of 7-, 14- and 28-day options in six separate phases. Traders can subscribe to vouchers on a first come, first served basis up to 24 hours before the start of each phrase, and hold up to one active yield voucher at a time. The maximum subscription amount is 0.25 for BTC vouchers and 10,000 for USDT vouchers.    

The wallet balance used to claim yield vouchers will not be locked away and can still be used as margin. Traders can continue to trade and withdraw with zero disruption. If a trader’s daily average wallet balance falls below an active voucher’s subscription amount, however, the voucher will be forfeited. More information can be found on Bybit’s Balance Booster event page. 

Surfing the Crypto Waves

As retail and institutional confidence in the crypto markets continues to surge, Bybit has registered substantial growth over the past six months. The crypto exchange recently surpassed the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) to become the world’s second-largest Bitcoin futures trading platform by open interest. Its 24-hour BTC trading volume reached as high as $27 billion this year. 

“As a client-centric exchange, we are always looking for ways to deliver more value to the traders using our services,” said Ben Zhou, co-founder and CEO of Bybit. “We are excited to roll out ‘Balance Booster’ and help clients earn more on their crypto assets under any market condition.”

Newly joined traders can receive up to $600 in bonuses by hitting simple milestones on Bybit. More information can be found on the exchange’s Rewards Hub.

About Bybit

Bybit is a cryptocurrency trading platform established in March 2018. The company provides online trading services to retail and professional clients around the world.

Find more about Bybit on the official website

Contact by email: marketing@bybit.com

Connect on LinkedIn

Follow Bybit on Twitter

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Binance has partnered with Media Publishares, the publisher of Vogue Singapore, to help them build a non-fungible token (NFT) platform.

In a statement shared with The Block on Wednesday, Binance said it will provide technology for the platform that is focused on fashion, arts, and music industries.

Media Publishares first revealed the NFT platform’s development last week in collaboration with blockchain-based digital advertising firm Vidy. Now Binance has joined the duo in the effort.

“Binance is always dedicated to exploring innovative blockchain applications with other industry leaders,” said Helen Hai, head of Binance NFT. “Together, I am confident we can build a platform that will unlock the imagination of art and technology, maximize the value of creativity, and accelerate growth of the fashion industry.”

The NFT platform is expected to launch in Q3 of 2021, Media Publishares said last week. It would allow users to mint, auction of and trade NFTs.

NFTs are digital tokens tied to unique artworks and pieces. The NFT market has grown significantly in popularity in recent weeks. “However, it’s still in early stages and has a long way to go with regards to infrastructure development,” according to Vidy founder Matthew Lim.

“With the metaverse and rise of digital models, people will be able to live in a parallel virtual world where they can own a digital identity and purchase items not just in a digital file, but as any unique asset in their virtual land, similar to their physical world,” said Lim.

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.