Coinbase valued at $90bn in private auction before listing with Nasdaq

Coinbase shares changed hands at a value of about $90 billion last week, in what could be the final chance for investors to trade its private stock before the cryptocurrency exchange goes public, according to sources.

That valuation is based on $350 a share, the price the stock was trading at on the Nasdaq Private Market auction that ended last Thursday it was reported.

The auction was the last time shares are being sold on the Nasdaq Private Market before Coinbase goes public later this month.

Some of the shares had traded at $375 earlier in the auction, which would value the company at close to $100bn, they added.

Private trading is more restrictive and volumes are usually smaller than in the public markets, and not a perfect picture of the company’s value. The Nasdaq private market is a division of Nasdaq devoted to trading shares in companies before they go public.

Before the direct listing, the Nasdaq still needs to set a reference price for investors, which is partly based on private trading activity. These private trades are not necessarily indicative of where the stock will actually trade.

The offering will be the first major direct listing, an alternative to a traditional IPO, to take place on the Nasdaq. All such previous listings were on the New York Stock Exchange, including those by Spotify Technology, Slack Technologies, Asana and Palantir Technologies.

Online video game company Roblox has also announced that it plans a direct listing, after earlier delaying its IPO and raising capital privately.

Coinbase will not raise any proceeds in the transaction, according to its filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The company did not list an address for its headquarters, saying that instead it became a “remote-first” company in May.

The company swung from a loss to a profit of $322 million last year on net revenue that more than doubled to $1.14bn, according to its filings.

Founded in 2012, Coinbase has raised more than $500m from backers that include Y Combinator and Greylock Partners, Tiger Global Management, Andreessen Horowitz, Ribbit Capital, Union Square Ventures and co-founder Frederick Ernest Ehrsam III among its biggest shareholders.

Private trading tends to be more restrictive and volumes are usually smaller than in the public markets