Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has announced that it has postponed the listing of Coinbase Stock Token [COIN] due to market volatility issues. The official press release stated that investors will be notified once the COIN/BUSD pair is available for trading on the platform.
This came just hours after the exchange announced adding support for tokenized version of Coinbase stock for trading. This was the second stock token listing after TSLA which were zero-commission digital tokens that are fully backed by a depository portfolio of underlying securities representing the outstanding tokens.
Events that unfolded after the high-profile Coinbase’s debut on Nasdaq
The Coinbase listing occurred without the IPO route. The cryptocurrency exchange, instead, went ahead with the Direct Listing route under the ticker symbol ‘COIN’.
COIN’s reference price was set at $250 by Nasdaq. However, the shares made a debut of more than 50% higher at $381 before making a climb to $424. It was no less than a landmark event for the cryptocurrency market with Coinbase’s valuation briefly rising to above whopping $112 billion.
Failing to retain this level following the excessive market frenzy, COIN dropped to $313 subsequently closing at $328.28 per share on Wednesday, with the valuation of the exchange at $85.8 billion on a fully diluted basis.
In the wee hours of 15th April, however, the shares of the platform rose to $361 in premarket trading. This could have been triggered due to the three funds at Cathie Wood’s Ark Investment Management buying the shares. According to reports, the flagship Ark Innovation ETF, Ark Fintech Innovation ETF as well as Ark Next Generation Internet ETF made a massive purchase of a combined 749,205 shares of Coinbase.
Despite the high-profile launch, concerns regarding volatility in the realm of digital assets and regulatory uncertainty continued to linger in the Brian Armstrong-led company’s share price. However, several experts weighed in that Coinbase’s growth has been quite impressive and despite its competitors creeping in closer, it still has an upper hand.
In the latest edition of CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe”, Carol Alexander, a professor at the University of Sussex Business School, opined that risk management from a regulatory and the operational point of view is “much better on Coinbase” as opposed to its rivals.
Alexander also went on to add,
“They’ve got this solid revenue stream from the fees and the custodial services as well. There’s no real competitor to them on the centralized exchanges because Kraken, Gemini — I don’t think they’re the next ones to go.