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December 17th is destined to be an extraordinary day in the history of cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin triumphantly hits a new all-time high. As the eastern hemisphere has entered a new day, the time still stands still yesterday and there is another thunder from the other side of the ocean-Coinbase, the leading cryptocurrency exchange, has submitted a draft S-1 registration statement to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The so-called S-1 form, in layman's terms, is equivalent to China's prospectus, which contains all the materials that the company needs to submit when it conducts its initial public offering (IPO). Opponent situation, market position, whether income is stable, etc.

In simple terms, the filing of the S-1 form means that Coinbase has officially started its listing process. If the SEC is willing to give Coinbase the green light, it will undoubtedly be a major milestone in the entire history of cryptocurrencies.

In fact, as early as the end of 2018, rumors circulated in the market that Coinbase wanted to conduct an IPO, with a reported valuation of up to $8 billion. However, when there was a lot of discussion, Asiff Hirji, then the chief operating officer of Coinbase, clarified to Bloomberg that Coinbase should not conduct an IPO in the near future.

ReutersReutersAccording to an exclusive report, people familiar with the matter revealed that Coinbase had started preparations for listing at that time, and the listing may be completed as early as this year. However, an anonymous source later said that Coinbase may not choose the traditional IPO model for its listing, but choose a direct listing, which means that Coinbase will not issue new shares (pre-market shares) before the stock is publicly traded. .

Since neither Coinbase nor the SEC has disclosed the specific content of the S-1 form, the specific details of its listing application are unclear.However, even if Coinbase really chooses not to issue new shares, it seems understandable. On the one hand, the exchange business has strong profitability, and on the other hand, Coinbase has also received huge funds in past financing.

Crunchbase Since 2012, Coinbase has so far raised a total of $547.3 million in nine funding rounds, as follows:

At the time of the E round of financing in 2018, Coinbase’s valuation was as high as US$8 billion. In the past two years, the cryptocurrency industry has undergone earth-shaking changes, and Coinbase’s leading position in European and American compliance exchanges has also been increasingly consolidated , there is reason to believe that its market value after listing will be much higher than this figure.

On the other hand, Coinbase Ventures, a venture capital arm of Coinbase, is also making crazy moves in the market, rapidly expanding its ecological territory.

In 2020 alone, Coinbase Ventures has invested in storage project Arweave, public chain Near, trading platform FalconX, NFT market Opensea, Indian exchange CoinDCX, data index project The Graph, Polkadot DeFi project Acala, custody service provider Curv, derivatives Product exchange DerivaDEX, streaming service Audius, chain game company Dapper Labs, analysis platform Dune Analytics, wallet service provider Multis, decentralized exchange DODO, automated market-making protocol CoFiX, Ethereum chain music market Zora, encrypted financial services Provider Amber Group, blockchain interoperability layer Axelar, fixed interest rate agreement Notional, data service provider Blocknative, asset management platform Zapper Finance, DEX aggregator DEX.AG, Latin American exchange Bitso, privacy protocol layer project Keep Network, etc.

Almost every investor in the currency circle has heard of the "Coinbase effect". The so-called Coinbase effect means that once a certain token is listed on Coinbase, there will be an astonishing increase in the secondary market. influence. However, despite the widespread impact of the "Coinbase Effect", this prudent exchange has also been criticized for not listing coins fast enough. Coinbase is obviously aware of this problem. At 1:01 am today, the star data index project The Graph (GRT) suddenly announced the launch of the main network. Only 39 minutes later, Coinbase Pro announced that it would launch GRT, even faster than the fast Some other top exchanges.

In any case, the listing of Coinbase is a boost to the confidence of practitioners in the whole industry, and it will also be a great opportunity for practitioners to understand the details of the operation of leading companies.

This time, Coinbase is incarnating as a "thorn cutter", cutting the way forward for latecomers.