A new fundraising round leaves Coinbase valued at $8 billion
It's got plans for that money and cryptocurrency as a whole.
Coinbase has received a shiny new $8 billion valuation after completing a new $300 million fundraising round to accelerate the adoption of cryptocurrencies. The latest round was led by Tiger Global Management and involved some familiar names in fintech and cryptocurrency, including Y Combinator, Andreeson Horowitz, Polychain and others.
Where Coinbase stands and where the money goes
The $8 billion valuation cements Coinbase's position as one of the world's most highly-valued cryptocurrency firms, just in case there were any doubts.
The valuation puts Coinbase's valuation above all cryptocurrency except bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP, and well above most other exchanges. Its European equivalent, or as close as one can get to it – Bitstamp – might be estimated to be somewhere closer to $400 million based on its recent buyout.
In a blog post announcing the completion of its Series E fundraising round, Coinbase president and COO Asiff Hirji said the newly-raised funds would be going towards global expansion, loading more crypto assets onto the exchange more quickly, introducing additional utility applications for cryptocurrency and bringing a wider range of institutions into cryptocurrency.
More specifically, it names the following among its goals:
- Building additional infrastructure between fiat and cryptocurrency in markets around the world.
- Continuing development of Coinbase Wallet.
- Expanding support for more coins.
- Adding additional features and assets to its custody offering, to help onboard institutional users more effectively.
A lot of these objectives are already well underway.
It has recently overhauled listing practises to onboard more coins much more quickly and is working to start trading security tokens. Most recently, it's pushing hard on a new stablecoin, the USDC, released as part of a broader consortium initiative.
Functionally, it has also made a series of acquisitions to expand the potential applications to cyptocurrencies beyond buying, selling and trading, and moving towards more of a useful crypto-economy. Acquisitions to this end include Earn.com, and the Compound platform – the first acquisition of Coinbase's venture capital arm, picked up only hours after the VC division's creation.
Disclosure: At the time of writing the author holds ETH, IOTA, ICX, VET, XLM, BTC, ADA
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