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Coinbase from YC to DPO

blog.ycombinator.com

551–560 of 883 posts

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#551
post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Bitcoin is worthless without dollars backing it. It’s because you can turn Bitcoin into dollars that anyone wants it.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#553
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CB abides by regulators and doesn't list every crappy project that comes along. They're trying to bring legitimacy to crypto. Binance is the wild wild west still and BNB is a centralized useless ETH sidechain.

Users are moving to Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and using BNB because Ethereum transaction fees are too expensive for people that aren't rich.

Aren't the BSC/BNB gonna go up if lots of people use it? If not, what technological advantage does it have? If it's because it's too centralized... doesn't that defeat the whole purpose?

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#554

Compare Coinbase to say a major exchange like the NYSE. Realize that crypto is a space that could be damaged by gov intervention at any time. Realize that there is very little lock in effect on these markets, and fees are becoming less and less over time. How does Coinbase ever manage to justify a valuation this high? 100B.... Ping me when the stock price is under $100.

This IPO significantly weakened the "gov will ban it" argument, it's like too big to fail now that it's in the hands of millions of retail and institutional investors alike.

The exchange game as it was with stocks and bonds is all about consolidation (and resulting revenue base). People are betting that coinbase will consolidate the market. I don’t buy it but that’s the “story”.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#555

I'm not sure what I'm more amazed at: The foresight of Coinbase's founder starting the company so early on, or my personal total lack of foresight having read with interest about Bitcoin from the beginning and yet not bothering to buy a single coin at any point over the past decade.

I know lots of really smart software people who avoided crypto because it didnt and still doesnt “make sense”. But we all didnt invest on the merit of the technology. We forgot the whole “how will people behave” part and lost out on millions.

That was me. But tbh I do now see the value of Bitcoin specifically, in a zero-sum deflationary sense. But the environmental cost doesn't really make it worth it.

Defi could make sense... but I think people underestimate the value of a physical bank with real people running the show. But a lot of rent extraction too... so idk.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#556

Does anyone know what percentage of their business is in Bitcoin vs Etherium vs other crypto currencies? I have not been able to find that out and I think it would be a helpful thing to know in terms of forecasting their business. Does anyone know how I can find that out? Thank you anyone who can help.

probably in their s1 or other sec docs

You're right, it is in the S1. Thank you dogman144!!

In case anyone curious, S1 page 99:

Historically, a significant portion of Trading Volume and transaction fee revenue has been driven by the purchase, sale, and trading of Bitcoin and Ethereum, and in 2019, Litecoin. For example, for the year ended December 31, 2019, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and other crypto assets represented approximately 58%, 14%, 10%, and 18% of Trading Volume and 60%, 11%, 8%, and 21% of our transaction revenue, respectively, and for the year ended December 31, 2020, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other crypto assets represented approximately 41%, 15%, and 44% of Trading Volume and 44%, 12%, and 44% of our transaction revenue, respectively.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Global wealth is $400T. All crypto currency combined is worth about ~$2T at this point. So to store 0.5% of the world's wealth, we are using 0.6% of the world's energy. Banks obviously don't use anywhere near this much energy. Bitcoin is estimated to use more energy than all other server farms put together. So we are using 0.6% of the world's energy to store 0.5% of the world's wealth. And Doesn't seem like the ideal…

The energy is not spent on storing though, it's expended when verifying transaction, isn't it?

In the sense that verifying transactions is what keeps the bitcoin network alive.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#558

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.

Airbnb doesn't have network effects, the value to users increases pretty linearly with the number of hosts, and doesn't really increase at all with the number of other users.

Also ignoring most cities now are banning or highly regulating these illegal hotels in residential neighborhoods

Coinbase seems less threatened by regulations

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#559

Compare Coinbase to say a major exchange like the NYSE. Realize that crypto is a space that could be damaged by gov intervention at any time. Realize that there is very little lock in effect on these markets, and fees are becoming less and less over time. How does Coinbase ever manage to justify a valuation this high? 100B.... Ping me when the stock price is under $100.

Coinbase does things that have no NYSE parallel, for example running a centralized ETH staking service (they keep 50% of the profits, which are 5+% of staked ETH so it's very high margin).

Of course anybody can run a service like that, but Coinbase has the brand name and a leg up on compliance/legal so they'll get to charge a big premium on this stuff.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#560

For reference, BP the number five global oil behemoth with 200B in revenues in 2020, has a market cap of 85B. Coinbase that sells pumped speculation for a fee has a market cap of 100B. Markets are efficient.

Literally compare COIN to any other market maker or financial institution. I would love to hear some justification here.

The fundamentals of Coinbase aren't actually that far off if you assume that their $730-$800 million Q1 income is sustainable.
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