In keeping with the grand theory that cryptocoins allow the rediscovery of financial regulations and procedures from first principles, the following could happen:
* Coinbase uses the funding to get to the point where they can release a "dual currency" set of stock. One set of stock based on being traditional shares purchased with USD, one set based on being a tied to a "share token" purchased with whatever people choose to exchange (but initially sold by Coinbase for bitcoin). Presumably they would have voting rights per share tied to the conversion between bitcoin to usd.
* The normal shares are regulated in the boring SEC way.
* The share tokens are regulated according to wild west tech rules. Tokens are stolen, token private keys are lost, exchanges rediscover circuit breakers on facilitating token trades, etc.
I think there is also a second story if Coinbase were to release share tokens: Many scamcoins are essentially a way to buy shares in some service that does not fully exist yet, but has great upside potential. If this super simplistic description sounds like investing in stocks, then watching Coinbase share tokens toe the line between "scam coin" and "real deal Wall St. asset" will be an interesting experience.
Because there's already a lot of network effects built in to the existing exchanges and crypto infrastructure for trading securities is still immature, albeit promising.
1. Coinbase raises money from the IPO.
2. Coinbase takes some of that money and gives it to Grayscale.
3. Grayscale uses the money to buy cryptocurrency... On Coinbase!
Not only do Coinbase shares appreciate from the increased value of assets on their balance sheet, but they earn some of their money back from fees, too. Just make sure that steps #1 and #2 have some delay, after any lock-up period.
And since Grayscale can only divest from its funds for fees and doesn't allow redemption, more cryptocurrency tokens get "locked" in the funds indefinitely, unable to affect the spot price.
Traditional stock market buys tons of coinbase cash -> coinbase uses said cash to market-buy BTC with bots driving the price up -> BTC/their crypto of choice is now worth far more.
If the market follows their run they end up making far more than they reinvested.
Ostensibly not enough faith in security tokens as a method of managing shares. Still surprising from a strategic angle considering an acquisition of a platform like Carta could have given them a head start.
