Coinbase's 2020 Financials and IPO plans

Coinbase recently released their 2020 financials and the results were eye opening. Their 2020 revenue came in at $1.2 billion, with profits of $322 million. It was well known that Coinbase had confidentially filed with the SEC for an IPO. On February 25th they publicly announced their intention to get listed directly on NASDAQ with a valuation of around $100 billion and shares priced around $370. Their ticker symbol will be "COIN".

At the end of 2020 Coinbase was holding around $90 billion in investments with over 43 million verified users, 2.8 million of which made at least monthly transactions. Coinbase has done a good job of investing in security, although some customers claim their customer support is lacking. Coinbase offers a variety of cryptocurrencies to customers and has different flavors of tools available including Coinbase, Coinbase Pro, Coinbase Prime and Coinbase Wallet.

The richest man in the world now loves crypto

When Elon Musk talks or tweets people generally listen. This week Musk changed his Twitter bio to #Bitcoin ₿. Russell Okung, an offensive lineman for the Carolina Panthers, posted "Plant the flag to declare you are ready for the future". Okung takes half of his $13 million dollar salary in Bitcoin. Shortly after his post he got over 2,000 responses from people showing they had updated their Twitter bios to #Bitcoin too.

When someone like Musk comes out and endorses cryptocurrency the markets inevitably respond. Bitcoin, and many other cryptocurrencies, had a very good week after his post. Bitcoin is now sitting at about $37,700 per Bitcoin as I write this. It will be interesting to see what other social media influencers hop on the crypto train in upcoming weeks. Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, has been a long time supporter. Other celebrities like Ashton Kutcher, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Snoop Dogg have been purchasing crypto for years.

GameStop, Robinhood and Reddit

This past year we have seen social media tools changing the world. Users on Reddit got together and decided to punish short sellers of GameStop. By banding together and buying GameStop stock these investors caused GameStop stock prices to skyrocket, which caused hedge funds to lose billions of dollars. Melvin Capital lost a ton of money and had to accept a $2.75 billion bailout from outside sources. Robinhood responded by freezing trading of GameStop stock on their platform. This was unprecedented and some say unethical. It is almost like they decided to stop the bleeding of the hedge funds (rich people) that made risky, big bets that exploded in their face. In the last 24 hours other Redditors have hyped up Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency that was created as a joke (based off an Internet meme about a Japanese dog breed). The price of Dogecoin, which is not available on reputable platforms such as Coinbase, has shot up over 300%. Social media was used by people to rally the troops and invade the Capitol on January 6th, which resulted in the deaths of 5 people and sent Donald Trump out the door in disgrace, impeached for a second time. It will be interesting to see if the SEC responds to these latest developments with new regulations. We live in unprecedented times and social media is a big driver of these massive changes.

#dogecoin #crypto #reddit #gamestop #robinhood