Brian Armstrong’s Coinbase Shares Could be Worth $14 Billion After the IPO
With Coinbase’s impending direct listing reportedly coming next month, reports emerge frequently indicating the impact of a crypto company going public for the industry and for the exchange itself. According to the latest estimations, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong could become the latest tech decabillionaire with his current stake of roughly 40 million shares.
Armstrong to Become Decabillionaire?
CryptoPotato has reported Coinbase’s plans to go public in the past, with the latest indicating that the direct listing will occur in April instead of March 2021. Being one of the largest companies in the crypto industry, the move could have a significant impact on the field but also on the people involved with the largest US-based digital asset exchange.
Naturally, the founder and CEO of the firm – Brian Armstrong – could be among those who benefit the most. According to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), he owns 39.6 million Coinbase shares between his Class A and Class B holdings.
The company’s updated prospectus informs that the average private market share price would be $343.58. In total, Armstrong’s net worth would be well above $13.6 billion, which would place him among the so-called tech decabillionaires.
Some of the other prominent names in this notable group include Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Tesla’s Elon Musk, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.
Coinbase to Improve Customer Service
Coinbase’s CEO held an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on Reddit recently, in which he received numerous questions regarding the company’s development during and following the direct listing.
Apart from refuting any wild speculations that Coinbase customers will receive “airdrops” of company shares prior to the listing, he addressed the notoriously unresponsive customer support team.
Armstrong blamed it on the current bull run, which has led to a massive surge in sent questions and inquiries. While some community members alleged Coinbase in “hiding” behind automated responses, the company’s CEO promised to address the issues as soon as possible.
He noted that Coinbase has been on a hiring spree in recent months of customer support representatives, and predicted that the situation would improve in the upcoming few months.
“Actually, the number [of people] we brought on this year is more than the entire size of the customer support team prior to 2021. You can imagine it takes a long time to both hire those people and also train them so that they can be really effective in helping customers. So you are seeing some automation and things like that, but we never want to prevent customers from contacting somebody.”
