Analyst Tells Maria Bartiromo Traders Are Likely to Give Coinbase a Valuation 4 Times Greater than Nasdaq

Coinbase’s value may be four times greater than that of the Nasdaq Exchange once the dust has settled on its direct public offering, ERShares founder Joel Shulman said in an interview with Maria Bartiromo.

“This is a DPO — direct public offering — and at [a] $250 initial price, it’s going to [have] a value of about $65 billion,” Shulman noted in a Wednesday morning interview on Bartiromo’s Fox Business Network program. “Generally, DPOs are priced about 38 percent less than the ultimate price, which means it could be valued as high as $100 billion, which will put it four times bigger than the Nasdaq Exchange, and about 1.5 times the value of the New York Stock Exchange’s parent, Intercontinental. So this is an extraordinary direct public offering.”

Nasdaq, Inc., which operates a stock exchange in the United States and seven in Europe, is worth a little more than $25 billion. The exchange provided a reference price of $250 for Coinbase stock, which was set to be listed Wednesday. Shares were set to open closer to $350 as of early Wednesday afternoon, putting the company close to the level Shulman referenced.

The cryptocurrency market, meanwhile, hit a record high in excess of $2.2 trillion, according to various estimates. The figure nearly tripled its January starting point of around $800 billion. Coinbase, which profits from cryptocurrency trading fees, has benefited from the boom, earning $1.8 billion in the first quarter of the year, up from $1.28 billion for the calendar year of 2020.

“In terms of the market, we think it’s going to validate the price of bitcoin, which is … at an all-time high, and Ethereum,” Shulman said. He also noted that Coinbase was “up around 900 percent in the last year, year-over-year,” adding, “Almost half of it is profitable … so it’s an extraordinary story, very exciting time for this type of market.

Watch above via Fox Business Network.