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Alan W. Dowd is a Senior Fellow with the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes on the full range of topics relating to national defense, foreign policy and international security. Dowd’s commentaries and essays have appeared in Policy Review, Parameters, Military Officer, The American Legion Magazine, The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, The Claremont Review of Books, World Politics Review, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Jerusalem Post, The Financial Times Deutschland, The Washington Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Examiner, The Detroit News, The Sacramento Bee, The Vancouver Sun, The National Post, The Landing Zone, Current, The World & I, The American Enterprise, Fraser Forum, American Outlook, The American and the online editions of Weekly Standard, National Review and American Interest. Beyond his work in opinion journalism, Dowd has served as an adjunct professor and university lecturer; congressional aide; and administrator, researcher and writer at leading think tanks, including the Hudson Institute, Sagamore Institute and Fraser Institute. An award-winning writer, Dowd has been interviewed by Fox News Channel, Cox News Service, The Washington Times, The National Post, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and numerous radio programs across North America. In addition, his work has been quoted by and/or reprinted in The Guardian, CBS News, BBC News and the Council on Foreign Relations. Dowd holds degrees from Butler University and Indiana University. Follow him at twitter.com/alanwdowd.

ASCF News

Scott Tilley is a Senior Fellow at the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes the “Technical Power” column, focusing on the societal and national security implications of advanced technology in cybersecurity, space, and foreign relations.

He is an emeritus professor at the Florida Institute of Technology. Previously, he was with the University of California, Riverside, Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, and IBM. His research and teaching were in the areas of computer science, software & systems engineering, educational technology, the design of communication, and business information systems.

He is president and founder of the Center for Technology & Society, president and co-founder of Big Data Florida, past president of INCOSE Space Coast, and a Space Coast Writers’ Guild Fellow.

He has authored over 150 academic papers and has published 28 books (technical and non-technical), most recently Systems Analysis & Design (Cengage, 2020), SPACE (Anthology Alliance, 2019), and Technical Justice (CTS Press, 2019). He wrote the “Technology Today” column for FLORIDA TODAY from 2010 to 2018.

He is a popular public speaker, having delivered numerous keynote presentations and “Tech Talks” for a general audience. Recent examples include the role of big data in the space program, a four-part series on machine learning, and a four-part series on fake news.

He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Victoria (1995).

Contact him at stilley@cts.today.

Coinbase: Stock Price, Valuation and Everything Else You Need to Know

Friday, April 16, 2021

Categories: ASCF News Emerging Threats

Comments: 0

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Shares of Coinbase Global Inc., COIN +5.02% the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, started trading Wednesday under the ticker symbol COIN. The company, founded in 2012, provides a variety of financial services focused on bitcoin and about 50 other cryptocurrencies. It is the first major crypto company to go public and did so through a direct listing.

What is Coinbase’s stock price?
The company’s stock opened higher on its first full day of trading Thursday, increasing to $349.20 before pulling back to hover around $333.

The shares made a rollercoaster debut on Wednesday. After opening at $381 on the Nasdaq Global Select Market, they rose as high as $429.54 in the first few minutes of trading—briefly giving Coinbase a valuation of more than $110 billion—before ending the session at $328.28. The exchange had set a reference price on Tuesday of $250, but no trades were executed at that price.

What is Coinbase’s valuation?
Coinbase fetched an $85 billion valuation on its opening day—a significant increase over the $8 billion at which the company was last valued in a 2018 fundraising round but below some analysts’ projections of $100 billion. It makes Coinbase worth more than both Nasdaq Inc., which has a market value of about $26 billion, and New York Stock Exchange parent Intercontinental Exchange Inc., at about $69 billion.

Is this Coinbase’s IPO?
While this is Coinbase’s stock-market debut, the company opted to go public in a direct listing rather than take the traditional route. In a direct listing, companies save the money they would pay to investment banks in a traditional initial public offering, but they don’t raise any money in the process. That is because the company’s current investors sell their existing shares to the public rather than the company offering new shares.

Why now?
Coinbase and some other big crypto companies have long eyed the public markets. What has changed over the past year is that regulatory risk has diminished. Many world governments now are at least neutral, if not supportive, of cryptocurrencies. That removed a major risk for traditional investors and helped drive an eye-popping rally in the price of many cryptocurrencies. If Coinbase’s debut is a success, expect others to follow.

How can you buy Coinbase stock?

Unlike in a traditional IPO, an investment bank isn’t underwriting the deal. Existing stockholders have had the option since Wednesday to sell shares on the Nasdaq Global Select Market, and individual and institutional investors can buy them through a brokerage firm.

What are some risks of investing in Coinbase?
The company’s fortunes are closely intertwined with bitcoin, the digital currency launched more than a decade ago. Last year, 96% of Coinbase’s net revenue came from transaction fees when its users bought or sold cryptocurrencies, which means the company benefited when bitcoin was in one of its frantic trading phases. In 2019, a down year for bitcoin, Coinbase lost about $30 million.

In addition, competition in the rapidly evolving cryptocurrency industry could undermine Coinbase’s stock price in the long run. The company charges hefty fees compared with other crypto exchanges. A small investor looking to buy $100 of bitcoin at the prevailing market price would pay about $3.49 in fees on Coinbase, and potentially more with some payment methods such as debit cards. At Kraken, a rival exchange, the same investor would pay $1.50. At Bitstamp, another competitor, the cost would be 50 cents.

How have Coinbase, cryptocurrency and bitcoin fared during the pandemic?
Coinbase’s profitability has exploded amid a rally in the price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Last week, the company said it expected its first-quarter earnings to be between $730 million and $800 million—more than double what it earned in all of 2020—on revenue of $1.8 billion.

That growth has tracked the price of bitcoin, which has more than doubled this year, hitting a record of $64,829 on Wednesday morning. Other cryptocurrencies, including ether and dogecoin—the meme cryptocurrency created as a joke—also reached highs Wednesday morning propelled by the Coinbase listing.

Photo: EMIL LENDOF/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/coinbase-stock-price-valuation-and-everything-else-you-need-to-know-11618413312?page=1

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