On April 14, shares of the US-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase began trading on the Nasdaq exchange. Coinbase reached a market valuation of $86 billion.

Coinbase shares started trading on Nasdaq at 13.30 on the East Coast (5.30 London time). At the start, the price of securities increased from $381 to $429, but then dropped by 100 points within an hour and a half. By the close of trading, Coinbase was trading at $328, pushing the company's market valuation to a record $86 billion. Even with a significant drop, Coinbase stock traded well above the $250 reference price set on Tuesday night by the Nasdaq.

Coinbase is now the most valuable exchange in the world by market value, overtaking giants such as the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), the Intercontinental Exchange, the operator of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), and the London Stock Exchange (LSE).

Bitcoin exchange Coinbase listed 114,850,769 Class A shares on the Nasdaq under a direct listing in an updated S-1 filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Direct listing is used as an alternative to an initial public offering (IPO).

ARK Invest was among the buyers of Coinbase stock. The fund acquired 749,205 COIN shares for approximately $246 million for three of their exchange-traded ETFs.

The Nasdaq listing of Coinbase became the largest of all direct listings, surpassing the previous direct listings, those of Roblox ($38.3 billion) and Spotify ($29 billion).

Coinbase's entry to the traditional stock exchange became a major topic in the Bitcoin community. Investors drew attention to the colossal return on investment of early investors in Coinbase. Thus, Garry Tan's early investments in Coinbase in 2013 in the amount of $300,000 is now estimated at $2.4 billion.