As always, welcome again to another week's edition of Overbit Weekly Round Up, where we try and step back from some of the madness in every day, 24/7 markets and look at some of the more significant themes, threads and narratives developing in the financial and especially the cryptocurrency world.
That being said, it fits our first story of today comes right after a recent sit down in the US between Paypal founder Peter Thiel and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, along with former National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien.
On Tuesday, April 6th, the three men sat down for a talk regarding technology, Silicon Valley, and China, and how the three are interconnected, with the lecture entitled: "BIG TECH AND CHINA: WHAT DO WE NEED FROM SILICON VALLEY?" Given the current cultural and economic trends, it's no surprise this conversation prominently featured talks of Bitcoin, blockchains and digital currencies.
The talk, of course, varied widely, but the three touched on how the potential dominance of Bitcoin threatens fiat money, of which the United States is, of course, the global leader of. They spoke on China's continued move towards different forms of digital currencies, in addition to the country's already considerable presence in the Bitcoin world (mainly mining).
With the statue of the speakers and the lengths they spoke on this topic, it's clear that the next major frontier on many people's minds is the economic one, particularly in regards to the currency front. To us, this talk seems like yet another massive signal that the cryptocurrency era is just at the start.
Closing out today's Overbit Weekly Round Up, we look at Coinbase, one of the biggest and longest-running players in the cryptocurrency market, and their upcoming direct listing on Nasdaq, which the SEC just approved.
Coinbase is set to become the next tech firm to enter the market with a massive valuation, capitalising on the sector's continued growth amid broader economic difficulties exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.
Private market trading has priced the company at $68 billion, a figure that rises to about $100 billion when completely diluted shares are counted. And the company has stated that it expects to register approximately 115 million shares of Class A common stock, which will trade under the ticker symbol COIN. The issuing company does not sell new stock in a direct listing, instead allowing current owners to sell their securities to new buyers.
The company said in a release, "We expect meaningful growth in 2021 driven by transaction and custody revenue given the increased institutional interest in the crypto asset class".
While Coinbase is heavily reliant today on attracting users, who store and trade the two major cryptocurrencies. The company is betting on developing a larger ecosystem of crypto-related assets in the coming years.
With the decade-old company Coinbase making its debut on the public markets, this marks the terminal sentiment shift of crypto's market maturity and shows just how bullish the crypto market is today.
Thanks for reading this week's edition of Overbit Weekly Round Up, and we look forward to seeing you next week.