reply guys

I posted about this years before the IPO but Coinbase has never been our ally in as much as they never let us early crypto folk, who built their platform for them effectively, invest 

Instead they let professional basketball players in

It's pretty much illegal to allow retail to to invest meaningful amounts in private companies. 

I was in charge of this fundraising round (Series D, the one that Kevin participated in). We looked into a bunch of options but there are were too many complications.

Special purpose vehicles? Accredited investors?

SPVs are pretty extractive in most cases, especially at later stages.

Accredited investors is a thing, but Rule 12g has a bunch of reporting requirements if you have too many shareholders. So companies that aren't public are disincentivized to have a wider shareholder base.

Yeah that’s kind of what I mean though

If CB really wanted to let in these kinds of people they could have, but didn’t feel like it was worth it to them

So you get to invest $250 in a company at an $8B private valuation. 

Best case (<10% of outcomes) it's a 10x.

Most cases is it's 1.5-2x.

Years of illiquidity. No investor updates. Money seems trapped / gone.

A risk many would have been willing to take but instead companies decide for us

It would be performative to try to boost sentiment and Coinbase would get roasted for it. You and I would be part of the roasting. Why would Coinbase do all of this just to let people invest pennies? Obviously they’re just trying to manipulate their stock price we’d say. And the evil version of the SEC would agree.

I’d gladly have invested “Pennies” in 2013 or whenever Coinbase first came out and I became a user

c/acc - 🏴‍☠️🌊 Bring me that Horizon 🍹
Gold League of Legends player ✨hello✨
http://icebreaker.xyz/syed.fc

Coinbase did do a crowdfund in the seed round.

But I again, I think you're more interested in being "right" here.

Well I am right that it isn’t illegal, it doesn’t need to become a thing lmao

chatbfg

Maybe do a bit more research with ChatGPT

I mean, it is. But you're going to continue to think you're right.

I mean, it is. But you're going to continue to think you're right.

https://farcaster.xyz/dwr.eth/0x381929f6

Why are we saying 10,000 retail investors? 

It could be any much smaller number of accredited investors.

You seem like you want to be right

I just look at the exact same situation and see not companies taking the easier route but the banking cartel working with congress and drawing a line in the sand no one wants to fck with. Rightly so imo. You’ve got more important stuff to focus on. There will be a better time to fight. (Like now with tech more mature and a more conducive political regime.)

People will always be disappointed 

My entire argument since the start has been that companies find it much easier and palatable to raise money from big names than to work hard to include the (comparatively) little guy

The company did raise via crowdfund early open to accredited investors only.

If you raise from a small number investors, which ones do you pick?

What happens to the ones that get left out?

You act like I didn't spend hours on phone calls with lawyers and accountants to try and do this.

Reg 12g limits 2,000 accredited or 500 retail. It's an actual law.

Here comes the “I’m disengaging” 🤭