Coinbase Global Intends to Go Public Via Direct Listing
Company is latest to forgo traditional public-offering process
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global Inc. said Thursday it plans to go public through a direct listing, making the popular platform the latest company to forgo the traditional public-offering process.
The company said last month it had filed a draft registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a public offering.
Direct listings differ from traditional initial public offerings in that companies take their shares to the stock market directly. Companies are able to save money that in a more traditional IPO would be shelled out to investment banks. This option to go public isn’t as common as traditional IPOs.
Data-mining company Palantir Technologies Inc. PLTR -8.56% and streaming platform Spotify Technology SA SPOT -1.44% both went public through direct listings.
Coinbase was started in 2012 and is the biggest exchange for cryptocurrency in the U.S. The San Francisco-based company was recently valued at around $8 billion and has more users than Charles Schwab Corp.’s SCHW 0.84% platform.
One of the company’s aims was to make bitcoin accessible to a broader group of people. The platform also serves as a custodian for users’ assets.