Two trading apps have risen to the top of Apple's App Store in recent days. Robinhood holds the number one position, with Coinbase in second, at the time of publication on Friday. In third: popular social media platform TikTok. YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat hold the fourth, fifth and sixth positions, respectively. One possible conclusion is that folks are now more interested in swapping crypto and financial assets than they are in interacting on various social media platforms — a conclusion noted by CNBC in an article on Friday. Robinhood saw significant coverage in January when the company halted purchases of …

After much anticipation, Coinbase listed on the Nasdaq on Wednesday via a direct listing. Skybridge founder Anthony Scaramucci thinks the event should have been met with more attention from banks. “What I’m surprised about, frankly, is there isn’t a wake-up call at the banks, the commercial banks, like there was for the Netscape IPO in 1995 at Microsoft,” Scaramucci told CNBC on Friday after noting Coinbase’s connection with Bitcoin (BTC), in line with the asset’s growth and technical framework. He added: “Bill Gates thought the internet was a fad. He then realized what was happening with the Netscape IPO, and …

BAL, the native cryptocurrency of Balancer — a popular automated market maker (AMM) utilized by many decentralized finance (DeFi) users to trade cryptocurrencies — surged to new record highs above $70 on April 15. There are two key reasons behind the uptrend of BAL, namely the buzz around the Coinbase public listing and the resurgence of DeFi blue chips. What is the Coinbase and Balancer hype? On April 14, Adam Cochran, partner at Cinneamhain Ventures, said he believes BAL would likely be one of the primary beneficiaries of the Coinbase listing. Cochran said: "My theory is that most of Coinbase's …

American crypto exchange giant Coinbase went public on Wednesday with a direct listing on Nasdaq. The company’s performance on day one has been hailed as being positive overall, with Coinbase becoming the most valuable exchange in the United States ahead of legacy players such as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Coinbase’s first day of trading was seen by market commentators as a watershed moment for the crypto space, but how does its performance compare with that of other major companies to go public in the last decade? Trading under the ticker “COIN,” Coinbase stock opened at $381, which as expected, was …

Finance officials from both sides of the globe are taking the opportunity to criticize the value and utility of cryptocurrencies as media focus intensifies on the space following Coinbase’s direct listing on the Nasdaq. Bank of Korea governor Lee Ju-yeol said cryptocurrencies had “considerable limitations” as a method of payment, following a monetary policy meeting on Thursday, reports local outlet KBS World. While asserting that it was difficult to accurately value cryptocurrencies due to their volatile price fluctuations, Lee said the BOK had not shifted on its stance that they had no intrinsic value. Lee also referenced United States Federal …

Three exchange-traded funds offered by Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest purchased 749,205 shares in Coinbase Global Inc. (COIN), worth roughly $246 million combined. The Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK) now holds 512,535 COIN shares, while the Ark Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) purchased 147,081 shares, and the Ark Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF) bought 89,589. Ark’s funds were not the only ETFs accumulating COIN, with the Amplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF (BLOK) also getting in on the action. BLOK is among the most active ETFs in the crypto space, with seven of its 10-largest allocations operating in the blockchain industry and representing one-third …

Garry Tan, a prominent angel investor and the founder of Initialized Capital, was one of the first investors to provide seed funding to Coinbase eight years ago. Less than a decade later, and after today's highly anticipated Nasdaq listing for Coinbase's COIN stock, Tan's 2013 investment of $300,000 into Coinbase is now worth $2.4 billion. Coinbase debuted on the Nasdaq on April 14 at $381 per share, making it one of the most hyped listings in the U.S. stock market of the year. How did $300,000 become $2.4 billion? In 2013, when Tan invested in Coinbase, it was unclear whether …

The crypto exchange, whose CEO has previously dissuaded employees from expressing political views, started its initial public offering off with a message referencing U.S. President Joe Biden’s stimulus package. According to Coinbase, the crypto exchange had mining pool F2Pool embed the title of a New York Times article in the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain at 2:05 PM UTC today. The message in block 679,187 refers to the U.S. Congress passing the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 on March 10 — a bill which set aside $1.9 trillion for measures aimed at curbing the economic impact of the pandemic. In posting …

Following months of build-up and speculation, Coinbase (COIN) listed on the Nasdaq and in true cryptocurrency fashion, opening day trading was a volatile affair that may have had a widespread effect on the cryptocurrency market. COIN's reference price was initially $250 but the stock opened at $381 and rapidly rose to a high of around $429.54 before reversing course to $310 once the initial frenzy died down. Typically, stocks are quite volatile on their first day of trading and COIN is no exception to that trend. Therefore, the success of today's launch and the strength of Coinbase as a company …

Shares of digital currency exchange Coinbase (COIN) opened at $381 Wednesday — significantly higher than its pre-listing reference price of $250 — underscoring heightened institutional demand for the crypto-focused stock. The $381 value put Coinbase’s market capitalization at $99.6 billion on a fully diluted basis. The stock peaked at $429.54 for a gain of 71.8% from the original reference price. It was last seen trading around $350, having gained 43%, according to Yahoo Finance data. Meanwhile, the technology-focused Nasdaq Composite Index, which listed COIN, was down 0.6% on Wednesday. As Nasdaq reported Tuesday, Coinbase’s reference price does not reflect its …

Trading has already begun on Coinbase’s COIN stock on the Nasdaq after weeks of anticipation following the U.S. exchange giant’s direct listing announcement. COIN began trading significantly higher than the $250 reference stock price assigned by Nasdaq prior to the market open, rising quickly to around $430. The price fell sharply within the first few minutes of trading however, and sits at $381 at time of publication. Even so, COIN is up about 55%, putting the U.S. crypto exchange giant’s valuation at just under $100 billion. Enthusiasm for COIN exposure is also evident among crypto traders judging from the preliminary …

Galaxy Digital founder and CEO Mike Novogratz compared the listing of Coinbase's shares on Nasdaq today to the dawn of a new age in the adoption of crypto. In an interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box this morning, Novogratz called the long-awaited initial public offering, or IPO, of the major cryptocurrency exchange’s stock shares "the Netscape moment for the cryptocurrency economy." The Galaxy Digital CEO was referring to the tech company behind one of the earliest Internet browsers — Netscape Navigator — whose stock price surged from $28 to $75 in its first day. “This is a really important day for …