Live data from Hacker News

Coinbase S-1

sec.gov

131–140 of 736 posts

Re: Coinbase S-1

#131
post #116
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We hate the central banks! We're going to take away the power from them and the government! slight inconveniences, fraud happens We need a place to store our coin and help securely move it! recreates central banks with even less regulation and security Profit!

This conflates "Central Banks" with ordinary "banks" that hold assets in vaults. The two are comparable in the same way that Java is comparable to JavaScript. The steel-man argument is that the monetary policy of central banks can cause hyper-inflation of a fiat currency, and holding onto an asset that is immune to that, and potentially even being able to transact with that asset is a reliable way to break free from…

Most money is created by normal banks, not the central bank. If you Google “money creation” you will find this helpful link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_creation#Role_of_banks...

Re: Coinbase S-1

#132
Coinbase is extremely lucky that BTC seems to have established a new floor.

I’m curious how bullish they were after the crash a few years ago.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#134
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well regulation of this stuff is a kind of nightmare. Building an exchange is a nightmare - I tried once and scaling the thing is really complicated.

It's not like coinbase has not to worry about regulation anymore. And for the technical aspect, did you spend a few billion dollars when you tried? Potential coinbase competitors may. I don't think a valuation higher than NYSE and NASDAQ combined (or CME and CBOE combined) is reasonable.

They have a reasonable sized moat then no? I’ve no idea $77bn seems large, but they intend to be the world’s financial system in 10-20 years so could be worth even more.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#135
post #116
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We hate the central banks! We're going to take away the power from them and the government! slight inconveniences, fraud happens We need a place to store our coin and help securely move it! recreates central banks with even less regulation and security Profit!

This conflates "Central Banks" with ordinary "banks" that hold assets in vaults. The two are comparable in the same way that Java is comparable to JavaScript. The steel-man argument is that the monetary policy of central banks can cause hyper-inflation of a fiat currency, and holding onto an asset that is immune to that, and potentially even being able to transact with that asset is a reliable way to break free from…

This could be surprising to a lot of people, but modern central banks, including the Fed, can't control the quantity of money and the interest rate at the same time.

Controlling one means losing the control of the other and modern central banks control the interest rate, not the quantity of money.

So, the causality is like this: when the economy gets hot, more credits are asked by business and households, because of that, the interest rate go up. In order to keep the interest rate in their choose target, central banks will add more money to the system. The Fed doesn't decide the quantity of money, the economy does it.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just buy bitcoin then? Do you think coinbase will go 10x faster than btc?

Coinbase makes money in a down market because of trading volumes.

I guarantee you coinbase stock is going to be highly correlated to the price of Bitcoin.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#137

Many have forgotten why we used cryptocurrencies in the first place. The original promise of cryptocurrency was to become independent from banks. In the end CoinBase (like every exchange) is a great product, but just a bank. It's centralized, hackable, has economies of scale, etc.

Decentralization of a currency is great in theory but adoption has been abysmal. At least as an investment asset BTC has found a niche. Especially with billions of tether issued without any fiat behind it to keep the market extra liquid.

>Especially with billions of tether issued without any fiat

Do you have any proof of this? Tether is over collateralized by $164M.

https://wallet.tether.to/transparency

Re: Coinbase S-1

#138
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once saw crytpocurrency described as "speedrunning the evolution of the modern financial system".

Ha! Sounds like an interesting perspective: do you perhaps have a link to the source?

It's not the source of that quote, but it's from the same perspective: "Tether" subheading of https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-02-24/the-va...

Re: Coinbase S-1

#139
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This conflates "Central Banks" with ordinary "banks" that hold assets in vaults. The two are comparable in the same way that Java is comparable to JavaScript. The steel-man argument is that the monetary policy of central banks can cause hyper-inflation of a fiat currency, and holding onto an asset that is immune to that, and potentially even being able to transact with that asset is a reliable way to break free from…

Most money is created by normal banks, not the central bank. If you Google “money creation” you will find this helpful link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_creation#Role_of_banks...

Yes, but that's only possible because of the underlying monetary policy, which is controlled by the Fed.

In contrast, there is no way you can do this with (most) cryptocurrencies. The monetary policy of Bitcoin is dictated by the physical bounds of the proof-of-work algorithm. There is absolutely nothing that Coinbase can do to "create" more Bitcoin outside of just mining it like everyone else.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#140
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. What’s the upside? How can Coinbase be valued at nearly that of large banks that process orders of magnitude more transactions and can actually earn money on balances? NYSE and NASDAQ are surely not valued at anywhere close to $100b. Does that mean Coinbase can acquire them? Bubbles are bizarre. EDIT: Yes, it is valued at more than ICE and NASDAQ combined with a fraction of the revenue and significant risk. Mo…

Coinbase isn't going public via SPAC. SPACs are underwritten by the usual suspects... GS, CS, DB, MS, etc.

What’s this called? It’s not underwritten per the first page.

I’m not current on the nomenclature, apparently.

I’m calling it a NoPO for no public offering.

Post reply on HN