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Coinbase from YC to DPO

blog.ycombinator.com

401–410 of 883 posts

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#401
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, maybe a month ago I found a Coinbase account from 2013 that I had forgotten about, and it still had everything in it. Your story makes no sense. Coinbase support has always been pretty good for every problem I've ever had. Why talk to someone on the phone when you can click a button and have a live chat with a support agent instantly? https://help.coinbase.com/en/contact-us

Is this a plant? coinbase support is notoriously horrible, even my friend who works at the company thinks it's bad.

I've needed support maybe four times in my 8 or so years using them, and each time they've resolved my problem quickly.

The complaints I've seen about Coinbase support are usually people who withdraw coins to the wrong address or something and are upset that Coinbase won't reimburse them for their own fuckups.

I have had several cryptocurrency exchanges straight up steal money from me and then ghost me. Coinbase has been a pleasure to work with relative to everything else in the crypto space.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#402
post #358

It's a tiny bit pedantic, but the Coinbase offering today was not actually an IPO, I learned, but a DPO (Direct Public Offering). It was not a fundraising event for Coinbase, only a liquidity event for shareholders, and unlike an IPO no explicit valuation process occurred to select an offering price.

Its not pedantic at all, it's the most interesting part of this IPO, because this is a new way to do IPOs.

its not interesting this is just another way stock markets are more about gambling instead of a way to raise capital. Previously you had startups doing their best to get sold to big companies instead of becoming profitable companies. Now they are going this route.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airbnb market cap is at 105 billion and Coinbase is currently at 86. Personally I'm very sceptical that current valuation for Coinbase is justified. It is a great company for sure but there definitely arent similar network effects as with Airbnb. There's plenty of competition in the crypto exchange space.

also airbnb is not dependent on the value of a speculative asset. There will always be demand for rentals.

There is 20 trillion of negative yielding debt floating around in govt bonds, luckily we can hedge against these horribly mismanaged house of cards before they fall on us. The demand is real.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#404
post #5

I still prefer Binance who are exposed to users via actual crypto (BNB) than Coinbase who are trying to eat the trad investors exposure and banking on their preferential treatment from US regulators. Not to mention that Binance has 9x the volume, much much more crypto and is pro-competition and lists Coin on day 1 while CB wouldn't even consider listing BNB or anything by competitors.

Binance is a total mess compared to Coinbase in terms of usability.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airbnb market cap is at 105 billion and Coinbase is currently at 86. Personally I'm very sceptical that current valuation for Coinbase is justified. It is a great company for sure but there definitely arent similar network effects as with Airbnb. There's plenty of competition in the crypto exchange space.

also airbnb is not dependent on the value of a speculative asset. There will always be demand for rentals.

Aren’t they firing a lot of folks due to the pandemic?

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#406

What is coinbase's moat? Not sure I understand how they arrived at the valuation.

There isn't one. That's not really a concern these days. COIN is worth double ICE, the parent company of the NYSE. I don't know how you justify that.

Coinbase is, in spirit, a modern pets.com.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airbnb market cap is at 105 billion and Coinbase is currently at 86. Personally I'm very sceptical that current valuation for Coinbase is justified. It is a great company for sure but there definitely arent similar network effects as with Airbnb. There's plenty of competition in the crypto exchange space.

also airbnb is not dependent on the value of a speculative asset. There will always be demand for rentals.

>also airbnb is not dependent on the value of a speculative asset.

What do you think US real estate is?

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#408

Right now Coinbase is trading around 350 making it worth about 100B, the total value of bitcoin is about 1.000B and all cryptocurrencies that are tradeable on Coinbase is maybe 1.500B. So the ratio between the value of the exchange is about 1/10 - 1/15 of the total value of the market it trades. (For comparison take say Interactive Broker's market value to the market value of the total stock market.) And Coinbase far…

for what it's worth, I would not invest in it

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

also airbnb is not dependent on the value of a speculative asset. There will always be demand for rentals.

>also airbnb is not dependent on the value of a speculative asset. What do you think US real estate is?

I can live in a house. I can't live in a Bitcoin.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#410

This is pretty amazing. Gary Tan made a YT video about his experience backing them very early and getting a 6000x return: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5YApjnTG10 It's remarkable that Brian Armstrong gave up what would have been very valuable options in Airbnb—the most valuable YC company at the time—to found a new company that surpassed it.

There's something pretty surreal about an actual multi-billionaire running the youtube investor guru schtick.
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