Coinbase soars in market debut, valued near $86 billion

Coinbase made a rousing debut on Wall Street Wednesday, with shares of the digital currency exchange rising as high as $429, briefly giving it a market value over $100 billion.

Coinbase Global Inc.’s initial public offering happened with cryptocurrency chatter seemingly everywhere, even at the U.S. Federal Reserve. Digital currencies are being incorporated into business plans and accepted for payment by major corporations like Tesla, PayPal and Visa.

The San Francisco-based company’s listing on a public stock exchange is seen by some as an inflection point for digital currencies, as Coinbase’s fortunes are closely tied to Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency. Bitcoin’s price topped $64,000 on Wednesday, up from $29,000 at the start of the year, and Coinbase said recently that firstquarter revenue should total around $1.8 billion, exceeding its revenue for all of2020.

Shares of Coinbase are listed on the Nasdaq under the ticker “COIN,” and closed at $328.28, up 31% from the $250 reference price set by Nasdaq ahead of the first trade. That puts Coinbase’s market value at $85.78 billion.

That market value makes Coinbase one of the biggest publicly traded U.S. companies — just 93 companies in the S&P 500 index have a higher market value. Coinbase’s value is close to the combined market value of Nasdaq Inc., which runs the Nasdaq Stock Market, and Intercontinental Exchange, which owns the New York Stock Exchange.