Ep. 18. Monster in waiting

I hope you had a great week. It&#8217;s been sunny in Texas, almost feels like summer is here. Meanwhile, the crypto news cycle continues heating up. Next week is the much anticipated Coinbase IPO. But first let&#8217;s dive into some highlights from last week. As always, I look forward to your feedback. Let&#8217;s go. <br/><br/>News<br/><br/>Coinbase had a monster Q1<br/><br/>Coinbase reported 56M users and 11% of all crypto assets are on their platform (both retail and institutions). Some analysts have upgraded their valuations over $100B ahead of Wednesday&#8217;s IPO<br/><br/>Lately, I have been thinking about two flavors of the Coinbase effect&#160;<br/><br/>Messari Research reported that tokens listed on Coinbase average a whopping 91% price increase in the first 5 days! For more information check this out this <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/coinbase-effect-listings-cardano-messari">link</a>. <br/><br/>The IPO is going to mint a fresh batch of millionaires. Real estate agents and car dealerships are salivating. I also expect to see an exodus of talent as employees explore new opportunities. Some may become angel investors and pump more funds into the crypto sector. <br/><br/>Crypto Twitter is divided on whether or not to invest in Coinbase. Bitcoin maximalists believe bitcoin will outperform Coinbase in the long run. They are also fundamentally opposed to the centralized exchange. <br/><br/>Pragmatists argue that Coinbase is a key part of the ecosystem. Besides, whenever crypto prices inevitably fall, Coinbase may prove more resilient than bitcoin. After all, Coinbase profits from transactions irrespective of the price. <br/><br/>Q1: Robinhood had more crypto traders than Coinbase<br/><br/>In Q1, 9.5M Robinhood customers had crypto transactions each month. This was ~50% higher than Coinbase&#8217;s monthly users (6.1M).&#160;<br/><br/>Unlike Coinbase, Robinhood does not charge a commission for cryptocurrency transactions. However, Coinbase pays interest on deposits in its account and covers more cryptoc