Coinbase Direct Listing (COIN)

2021

Date: April 14, 2021 · Place: Nasdaq, ticker COIN, direct listing (no underwriter) · Figures: Brian Armstrong, CEO and co-founder · Fred Ehrsam, co-founder · Emilie Choi, COO · Tags: IPO, Legitimacy, Top Signal, Nasdaq 01. The Photo on the Floor Coinbase opens at $381 a share and closes at $328.28, valuing the company near $86 billion fully diluted. The reference price is $250. There is no traditional IPO roadshow because it is a direct listing, the same vehicle Spotify and Slack used. The COIN ticker is the first US exchange listing of a pureplay crypto exchange. Crypto Twitter treats the listing as a coronation. Bitcoin trades to an all-time high of $64,895 the same morning. Within 24 hours both BTC and COIN start a slide that does not bottom for 18 months. The April 14 candle becomes the canonical top signal screenshot, captioned 'they rang the bell at the top.' 02. Bell at the Top The meme outlives the rally. Every subsequent cycle gets a 'Coinbase Super Bowl ad,' 'Coinbase IPO,' or 'Larry David FTX ad' tagged onto the chart as the contrarian sell trigger. The pattern is so reliable that traders begin treating Coinbase marketing spend as a sentiment indicator. Armstrong's 'we are the boring crypto company' framing becomes, in retrospect, an early version of the legitimacy / debasement tension that defines the rest of the cycle. "They rang the bell at the top." — Crypto Twitter consensus, April 14 2021 Sources • Nasdaq, COIN listing reference price filing, April 13 2021 • Coinbase Form S-1, February 25 2021 • Erin Griffith and Nathaniel Popper, 'Coinbase Goes Public,' The New York Times, April 14 2021 • Matt Levine, 'Coinbase Got Its Listing,' Bloomberg Money Stuff, April 15 2021