The start up Coinbase, a platform on which you can buy and sell cryptocurrencies, debuts on Wall Street on Wednesday.
Valued at $ 100 billion, it is the symbol of a world where currency is shifting into the digital age.
Nicolas Barré takes stock of a current economic issue.
Nicolas Barré returns this Wednesday to the story of a startup created less than ten years ago, which is already worth $ 100 billion and which is shaking Wall Street.
This startup is Coinbase, it's a platform on which you can buy and sell cryptocurrencies, Bitcoins of course, but also a hundred other cryptocurrencies.
It's made for the general public, it's very simple, you just need to open an account.
The success of Coinbase is dazzling: the platform has nearly 60 million users worldwide.
It is also intended to be very secure, the security of transactions is the obsession of its founder, Brian Armstrong, 38, a former Airbnb employee who was already in charge of payment security and who is today at the head of a fortune valued at $ 14 billion.
And this is the event today on Wall Street where Coinbase is going to be listed for the first time.
And what we are witnessing at the bottom is the meeting or more exactly the telescoping of two worlds: consider that this IPO is piloted by the Goldman Sachs bank, the most prestigious institution on Wall Street, founded in the middle 19th century and which itself is worth $ 120 billion, so barely more than Coinbase's 100 billion.
The platform founded in 2012 alone by Brian Armstrong employs 1250 people.
And it is worth more, it goes quickly, than the 80 billion BNP Paribas, the first bank in the euro zone with more than 190,000 employees ...
In fact, Wall Street is betting on the rise of cryptocurrencies.
Through Coinbase, it is electronic money that goes public today.
We can see there a symbol, that of a world which is gradually converting to electronic currencies, a world where the dollar or the euro are now competing with a multitude of cryptocurrencies which have other advantages than a traditional currency. , in particular in terms of confidentiality and security of transactions.
Cryptocurrencies which also arouse a very strong enthusiasm, it suffices to see the stratospheric evolution of the price of Bitcoin which was worth 10,000 euros in October, 20,000 in December and more than 52,000 this Tuesday!
It is not without risk, there is a lot of speculation in all of this.
But what we observe is that after having shunned them, the major Wall Street institutions convert to cryptocurrencies.
Coinbase is the symbol of a world where money is shifting into the digital age.
And maybe tomorrow to escape the control of states.
A real revolution ...