Coinbase Global intends to go public via direct listing
- Company is latest to forgo traditional public-offering process
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global Inc. said Thursday it plans to go public through a direct listing, making the popular platform the latest company to forgo the traditional public-offering process.
The company said last month it had filed a draft registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a public offering.
Direct listings differ from traditional initial public offerings in that companies take their shares to the stock market directly. Companies are able to save money that in a more traditional IPO would be shelled out to investment banks. This option to go public isn’t as common as traditional IPOs.
Data-mining company Palantir Technologies Inc. and streaming platform Spotify Technology SA both went public through direct listings.
Coinbase was started in 2012 and is the biggest exchange for cryptocurrency in the U.S. The San Francisco-based company was recently valued at around $8 billion and has more users than Charles Schwab Corp.’s platform.
One of the company’s aims was to make bitcoin accessible to a broader group of people. The platform also serves as a custodian for users’ assets.
—Paul Vigna contributed to this article.
Write to Allison Prang at allison.prang@wsj.com
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