Coinbase — Fintech and DeFi Research Archive

Posts tagged Coinbase

The State of Decentralized network M&A in 2021, with Polygon's $650MM of acquisitions

We look at the state of M&A in decentralized protocols, and the particular challenges and opportunities they present. Our analysis starts with Polygon, which has just spent $400 million on Mir, after committing $250 million to Hermez Network, in order to build out privacy and scalability technology. We then revisit several examples of acquisitions and mergers of various networks and business models, highlighting the strange problems that arise in combining corporations with tokens. We end with a few examples that seem more authentic, highlighting how they echo familiar legal rights, like tag alongs and drag alongs, from corporate law.

IPO / SPAC, decentralized finance, DAOs, digital investingLex SokolinDecember 15, 2021Polygon / Matic, Hermez Network, Mir Protocol, NuCypher, Keep Network, Coinbase, BRD, Voyager, ETHOS, Yearn, Cream, Pickle, Akropolis, Gnosis, xDai

CEO of Yield App, Tim Frost, on integrating DeFi Yield products into a regulated Fintech company

In this conversation, we chat with Tim Frost, CEO and Co-Founder of Yield App, a fintech app making DeFi accessible to everyone. Prior to founding Yield, Tim helped build 2 previous digital banks, Wirex and EQIBank. Tim has also helped accelerate early-stage blockchain startups QTUM, NEO, Paxful, Polymath, and many others.

More specifically, we touch on all things crypto banking and debit cards, crypto onramps, juristictions and regulation, defi banking, yield generation mechanisms, and so much more!

crypto, decentralized finance, digital investing, digital lendingLex SokolinOctober 8, 2021Yield App, Coinbase, Xapo, Wirex, EQIBank, SEC

Acquisition arbitrage between public and private fintech revenues, highlighted by Figure and Starling

In this analysis, we explore an overarching framework for the M&A activity in the fintech, big tech, and crypto ecosystems. We discuss acquihiring, horizontal and vertical consolidation, as well as the differences between growth and value oriented acquisition rationales. The core insight, however, is about the arbitrage between the fintech and financial services capital markets, as evidenced by the recent transactions for Starling and Figure.

acquisition, IPO / SPAC, venture capital, digital lending, fixed income, big tech, cryptoLex SokolinAugust 9, 2021Starling, Fleet, Figure, Homebridge, Citizens, HSBC, Amazon, Square, Afterpay, Coinbase, Binance, FTX

What do SPACs and IPOs say about Coinbase, Robinhood, Lemonade, SoFi, and other fintech darlings?

We look in detail at the state of marking recently-private-fintechs to the public market in mid-2021. Multiple industry segments have seen IPOs, direct listings, and SPACs transition fintech darlings into traditional stocks. How is performance doing? Is everything as magnificent and rich as we expected? Have multiples and valuations fallen or held steady? The analysis explores the answers and provides an explanatory framework.

venture capital, digital lending, digital investing, neobank, insurtech, IPO / SPACLex SokolinAugust 2, 2021LendingClub, GreenSky, Funding Circle, OnDeck, Affirm, Lemonade, Root, Metromile, Clover, Oscar, SoFi, Dave, Pioneer, Wise, MoneyLion, Robinhood, eToro, Acorns, Bullish, Bakkt, Circle, Coinbase, Voyager, Monzo, Revolut

The fundamentals of Circle's $4.5B SPAC, Robinhood's IPO, and the $30B of fintech venture capital

Last quarter, fintech funding rose to $30 billion, the highest on record. $14 billion of SPAC capital is waiting to take these companies public. Robinhood and Circle are about to float on the public markets, via SPAC and IPO. In this analysis, we explore the fundamentals of both companies, as well as the unifying thesis that explains their growth.

venture capital, digital investing, crypto, paytech, stablecoins, IPO / SPACLex SokolinJuly 12, 2021Robinhood, Circle, Centre, USDC, USDT, Coinbase, Schwab, Moonpay, SeedInvest, Jump Trading, Citadel, Uniswap, Poloniex

Building the best payments fiat to crypto onramp, with Ivan Soto-Wright of MoonPay

In this conversation, we have a really cool conversation on fintech, crypto assets, payments and all the things around it with Ivan Soto-Wright, the CEO and Co-founder of MoonPay.

More specifically, we discuss Liability-driven Investment (LDI), the proliferation of AI in personal finance to drive sound decision-making, innovation in finance is following the same trajectory that resulted in VOIP for the telecommunication industry, the geographical maze of crypto KYC, payment networks, and crypto payment processing.

digital lending, artificial intelligence, crypto, paytech, chatbots & other robots, regulation & complianceLex SokolinJuly 1, 2021MoonPay, Saveable, FCA, Plum, Binance, Coinbase, Solana, Ethereum, Bitcoin

Why Coinbase's $100B+ valuation makes sense, and how to compare it to $60B Ethereum DeFi, and to crypto-king Binance

his week, we look at:

There are two very large revenue pools in the crypto asset class — (1) mining, and (2) trading. There are some large revenue pools in crypto-as-a-software, too, but those tend to be less sensational.
This analysis will establish a 2021 baseline for the most regulated of crypto exchanges, Coinbase, including a detailed financial model building a $100B+ valuation case
We then consider the valuations and multiples of capital markets protocols in Decentralized Finance of Ethereum, now making up over $60B in token value
Lastly, we look at Binance’s $1B in profits, its $35B BNB token, and the activities on Binance Smart Chain

crypto, Fractals & reflexivity, IPO / SPAC, exchanges / cap mkts, decentralized financeLex SokolinFebruary 25, 2021Coinbase, Binance, BSC, Uniswap

How Coinbase Pre-IPO Economics Could Get a $15 Billion Valuation

Coinbase is going to go public.

The news hit Reuters, then Coindesk, and then the rest of the world. It feels like big news! The crypto broker is beating Robinhood, Acorns, Stash, Revolut, Betterment, and Wealthfront to the public markets. It's even beating SoFi, which is trying to get a national bank license (and who doesn't want to own a bank!).

crypto, digital investing, IPO / SPACLex SokolinJuly 13, 2020Coinbase, Lemonade, Xapo, Bitmain

Personal Capital is Acquired for $1 Billion, Lemonade IPOs and PayPal Joins the Crypto Club

Robo 1.0 success Personal Capital was acquired for nearly $1 billion by Empower, a major retirement savings manager. Softbank-backed insurtech darling Lemonade IPOed at less than $2 billion, in a successful fundraise and listing, and has since seen its market cap rise to over $4 billion. The IPO is a landmark for an insurtech industry in desperate need of successes. And PayPal announces the impending launch of crypto trading to its 325 million users. The move isn’t overly interesting in its own right, but the implications for the crypto space are worth exploring.

acquisition, digital transformation, digital investing, roboadvisorLex SokolinJuly 10, 2020Personal Capital, PayPal, Lemonade, BlackRock, Empower Retirement, Binance, Coinbase, MetaMask, Bitcoin

Everyone should trade the billions in DeFi Structured Products! Or do digital asset derivatives need custodians and regulators?

This week, I grapple with the concepts of financial centralization and decentralization, anchoring around custody, staking, and DeFi examples. On the centralized side, we look at BitGo's acquisition of Lumina, Coinbase Custody and its similarity to Schwab and Betterment Institutional. On the decentralized side, we examine the recent $500 million increase in value within the Compound protocol, as well as the recursive loops that could pose a broader financial risk to the ecosystem.

crypto, decentralized finance, DAOs, digital securities / STOLex SokolinJune 22, 2020BitGo, Coinbase, Lumina, Addepar, Fidelity, Betterment, Schwab, Ethereum, Bitcoin, ConsenSys, Institutional Shareholder Services, Compound, Balancer, PieDAO

Libra, Stablecoins, CBDCs and the Need for Digital Money

A digital world needs digital money, and a few influential players are actively working to build it. China's BSN initiative and Facebook's Libra embody the East's public sector led approach to building and owning the internet of value and the West's private sector led (and public sector challenged) attempt at cheaper commerce on the web. While the nature of the approaches may be different, the data and privacy considerations are eerily similar. For all of our past episodes and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome Lex Sokolin.

stablecoins, central bank / CBDC, paytechLex SokolinMay 1, 2020Libra / Diem, Facebook, Wise / TransferWise, SWIFT, Ethereum, Blockchain Services Network, China, Ripple, Coinbase

Top 5 Decentralized Finance predictions for 2020 and beyond

In the long take this week, I revisit decentralized finance, providing both an overview and 2019 update. The meat of the writing is the following long-range predictions for the space in the next decade -- (1) the role of Fintech champions like Revolut and Robinhood as it relates to DeFi, (2) increasing systemic correlation and self-reference in the space, which requires emerging metrics for risk and transparency, and (3) the potential for national services like Social Security and student lending to run on DeFi infrastucture, (4) the promise of pulling real assets into DeFi smart contracts and earning staking rewards, and (5) continued importance of trying to bridge into Bitcoin. Here's to an outlandish 2020!

crypto, decentralized finance, stablecoins, central bank / CBDC, ICO / IEO, digital securities / STOLex SokolinDecember 23, 2019Ethereum, EOS, Tron, Uniswap, MakerDAO, USDT, Set Protocol, Nexus Mutual, UMA Protocol, Synthetix, Coinbase, Argent, InstaDApp, Zerion, Centrifuge, Figure, Bitcoin

How the SEC is wrong about the Internet and the Bitcoin ETF

The Securities and Exchange Comission punted again on allowing a passive Bitcoin ETF to enter the market. It failed to approve the VanEck SolidX Bitcoin Trust, instead opting to open a commentary period to address several questions around Bitcoin price formation and the health of the exchanges. A similar outcome faces the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF. You can tell I am not a fan of this waffling, and there are two core reasons: (1) the years-long delay and uncertainty is responsible for financial damage to both traditional and crypto investors, and (2) the premise of the objections misunderstand the environment of the Internet and the way our world is shaping up in the 21st century.

crypto, asset management, artificial intelligence, things that are not true, regulation & complianceLex SokolinMay 27, 2019VanEck, Bitcoin, SEC, BitTorrent, Coinbase, Twitter, BitWise

Fintech & DeFi Research Archive🔄

Names

Themes

*