Coinbase Nearly Hit a $100 Billion Valuation, Making It More Valuable Than GM, Twitter and FedExCoinbase's initial market cap hit $85.8 billion this week, making it more valuable than some of the biggest American companies.
ByJustin Chan•
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase had a strong debut on Nasdaq on Wednesday, closing at $328.28 per share, according toCNBC.
Shares initially opened at $381 and went up to as much as $429.54 before dipping below their original price. Still, Coinbase's strong showing was reflected in its initial market cap of $85.8 billion, making the cryptocurrency exchangemore valuablethan General Motors ($84 billion), FedEx ($76 billion) and Twitter ($56 billion).
Related:Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) IPO: 3 Things for Investors to Know
Founded in 2012 to facilitate cryptocurrency transactions, Coinbasefiled for a listingon Feb. 25. The SECgave the exchange approvalearlier this month to list its Class A common stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market yesterday, which happened to be the day afterBitcoin hit an all-time high of approximately $63,000.
CNBCreports that Coinbase now has 56 million users — a jump from the 43 million users it had last year. That, in turn, has translated into a record amount of revenue for the company. Last week, Coinbase announced its preliminary first-quarter results and estimated that its revenue during that period had increased nine-fold to approximately $1.8 billion.
According toBusiness Insider, the cryptocurrency exchange is also currently worth more than twice as much as Chipotle ($43 billion), eBay ($43 billion) and Hilton ($35 billion). But, at lease one billionaire investor isn't buying into the hype for now.
"In the next week, certainly we could have some volatility because of the excitement around Coinbase," former Goldman Sachs partner and crypto investor Mike Novogratz said recentlyat a virtual event hosted byMarketWatchandBarron's.
"I've seen a lot of weird coins like dogecoin and even XRP have huge retail spikes, which means there's a lot of frenzy right now," the investor added. "That never ends well, and so we'll probably have a washout [of the broader market] at one point."
