Coin, based... The largest crypto exchange in America is scheduled to go public next Wednesday via direct listing (sorry, IPO). Coinbase will list its shares (directly) on the Nasdaq, becoming the first publicly-traded crypto exchange in the US. Coinbase thrived last year as investors poured into bitcoin. In 2020: it made $1.2B in revenue, and its first-ever annual profit of $322M. But it just shared some quarterly estimates that make those numbers look like BTC circa 2018:
Satoshi would be proud... whoever he/she/they are. 12 years have passed since the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto mined the first block of the bitcoin chain — and crypto is more relevant now than ever. Coinbase expects that it has a whopping 56M verified users (6.1M of which are trading monthly).
Coinbase's numbers highlight a "seasonal" effect... Coinbase's seasonal biz has nothing to do with ski lifts or white-sand beaches. A ski resort thrives in winter — Coinbase thrives on crypto buzz times. As bitcoin plunged in 2018, Coinbase lost 70% of its monthly transacting users. Before 2020, it had never seen a profit. As crypto dominated the conversation this year, Coinbase estimates it made more in three months than in all of 2020. Unprecedented crypto season = unprecedented earnings. Because of its reliance on fees from user trades, its fortunes can rise and fall with the crypto weather.