The first time I used that A16Z headline was in reference to Ms Kaminska's comments on a grossly overfunded Andreessen-backed "crypto" play called 21.co, later Earn.com which began life as a stupid way to mine bitcoin, on their Raspberry Pi [!] based computer and ended up as an email spam service.
It was so bad that even Nigeria Today put scare quotes into their headline.
When it became apparent that idea was not going to return the $116 mil. within the lifetimes of any of the GP or limited partners' grandchildren, Andreessen Horowitz did what any venture capitalist would do to bail-out the investors:Andreessen Horowitz Investee Coinbase May Buy Andreessen Horowitz Investee Earn.com (né 21.co)
Ha!
That's one way to exit.
Earn.com was not mentioned in April 4's "Crypto M&A: "Three Startups Coinbase May Have Its Eye On"" because it's such a Tesla/SolarCity-cousins-shouldn't-marry type of deal.
Yet here we are....
And here she is again. From FT Alphaville:
Why Coinbase’s stellar earnings are not what they seem
It’s easy to be profitable if your real unique selling point is being a beneficiary of regulatory arbitrage.
Coinbase, one of the most popular crypto exchange and wallet services operating in the regulated financial sector, shared its first-quarter earnings on Tuesday ahead of its Nasdaq direct listing on April 14. Top line results showed revenues sky rocketing to $1.8bn in the first quarter of 2021 versus $191m in the same period last year, with net income climbing to c$730m.
Other stand out numbers included the service reaching 56m verified users, trading volume of $335bn, and its $223bn worth of assets, setting the crypto service up for a valuation of up to $70bn. Twitter folk quickly forged a consensus that such figures prove not only that Delaware-incorporated company is a profit-minting machine but that crypto itself can no longer be ignored by traditional finance....
....MUCH MORE
When I saw the Coinbase revenue headlines, "up 9x ahead of listing" I thought "huh, that's timely."
I didn't know the half of it.
