Coinbase Global Inc. on Wednesday, it was valued at $ 85 billion in its stock market debut, an important moment for an industry that began a decade ago as an experiment with digital money.
Shares of Coinbase, the first major bitcoin-focused company to test the US public market, opened at $ 381 on the global Nasdaq Select market. They rose to $ 429.54 in the first few minutes of trading and ended the session at $ 328.28. Coinbase went public through a direct list under the COIN symbol.
The stock exchange had set a reference price of $ 250 on Tuesday, but no transactions were made at that price. While Coinbase was last valued at about $ 8 billion in a 2018 fundraising round, some analysts projected that its valuation could exceed $ 100 billion based on private market trading. He exceeded that level on Wednesday before retiring.
Investors should take whipsaw moves as an indication of how this stock could trade, said Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives.
“This will be a roller coaster,” he said, adding that there would be many investors trading in and out of shares. “At the moment, the street is still trying to put posts around the evaluation,” Mr Ives said.