Good evening, All eyes are on Coinbase’s direct listing tomorrow. In the last week, we have received a few more pieces of the puzzle. First, the company reported a very strong Q121, with revenues of $1.8m, greater than all of 2020. Monday, we received details on fully diluted shares outstanding (261.3m), including class A (130.7m), and class B (68.5m) shares. Finally, this evening, we received a “reference price” of $250, or $65.325 billion. Typically reference prices are set around the most recent private valuation, but for Coinbase, that was ~$350, or ~$90 billion according to Bloomberg.
This reference price valuation also looks extremely low relative to the “pre-market tracker” on FTX, which has been steadily climbing, most recently indicating ~$600. Adjusting for actual fully diluted shares outstanding of 261.3m implies $574, or $150 billion. Could it be the case that this pre-market indicator is so wildly off? This isn’t pre-market trading in the traditional sense and yes, volumes are lower than an actively traded stock market. It is described on the FTX site as - Coinbase (CBSE) is a pre-IPO contract. It tracks Coinbase's market cap divided by 250,000,000. CBSE balances will convert into the equivalent amount of Coinbase Fractional Stock tokens at the end of Coinbase's first public trading day.
Still, it seems more likely that the “reference price”, which, importantly, is set by the company and their bankers, is set artificially low because the success or failure of the first day of trading will be viewed in reference to $250. Why wouldn’t they set it as low as possible? Also, it's instructive to look to other direct listings as a guide (as I'm sure others have.) In looking at these, it's not out of the question that we could see a much higher price given many will argue that the real reference price is around $350.
See tidbits below worth noting so far this week. Big news for me - the third largest esports arena in the United States, LEVELUP, opened in my hometown of Overland Park, Kansas! Another attention-grabbing factoid - a physical house in Germany has been listed on Opensea as an NFT.
Finally, Signum Growth Capital is excited to host a discussion next week with CEO of MyNFT.com, Hugo McDonaugh, and a well-known domain name broker, on NFTs in the context of the traditional domain name market - let us know if you are interested in joining.
Thanks and have a great day!
Angie
Video Games
Nintendo Made Up 15% Of North American Gaming Revenue Last Year – Nintendo generated $6.8 billion in revenues in North America in 2020, which amounts to 15.8% of the total spending of users on video games. The mobile gaming market generated most of this revenue. Consumers in North America have spent a little above $40 billion on video games in 2020.
Age of Empires IV could bring back RTS in a big way this fall – Microsoft has announced that it will be launching the 4th edition of its legacy game – Age of Empires. The game has been under development since 2017 and Microsoft gave its fans a first glimpse into AOE IV this month. The game gets reviewed as ‘beautiful’ and could give real-time strategy games on the PC a much-needed shot in the arm.
NFTs / Digital Assets / Crypto
A House in Germany Is Being Sold as an NFT – The buyer of the NFT will be able to access unlockable content that comes with it, enabling them to contact the seller and organize the formal sale. “This is probably another first in the crypto world - I'm selling my real-world house as an NFT,” the seller wrote on NFT marketplace OpenSea.
Binance launches tokenized stock trading, starts with Tesla – Crypto exchange Binance has ventured into the space of tokenized stock trading, starting with Tesla. Users can now buy fractions of the Tesla stock token on Binance. It is the third exchange to do so following FTX and Bittrex Global.
Esports
United States’ Third-Largest Esports Arena Opens In Kansas – On April 9th, LEVELUP, the third-largest esports arena in the country, officially opened its doors in Overland Park, Kansas. “It’s the fastest-growing market in the world. A ($90) billion industry, and it just keeps doubling every year,” said LEVELUP co-owner Joshua Garr. “We’ll feature every event you can think of. We’ll have Call of Duty, Valorant, all the way down to Mario Kart, Smash Bros.”
Carrot Group And Lenovo Team Up To Reach Students Through Esports – Carrot Group has teamed up with laptop manufacturer Lenovo to expand its e-gaming solution to high school and middle school students. This solution has a profound focus on science, technology, engineering, arts and math (STEAM). “There will be millions of STEAM-related jobs unfilled in a few years and we need to get students interested in those fields. Collaborating with Lenovo on our esports program is an exciting opportunity to motivate more students to learn and pursue STEAM fields through gaming,” said Alan Zack, president of Carrot Group.