Why Clean Air Is So Expensive In The U.S.

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106871041-1618938650799-Screen_Shot_2021-04-20_at_10924_PM.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-402393" width="837" height="471" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106871041-1618938650799-Screen_Shot_2021-04-20_at_10924_PM.jpg 740w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106871041-1618938650799-Screen_Shot_2021-04-20_at_10924_PM-300x169.jpg 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 837px) 100vw, 837px" /><figcaption>Apple Airtag Source: Apple Inc.</figcaption></figure>



On Tuesday,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/AAPL" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Apple</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/20/apple-event-live-updates.html">announced</a>&nbsp;a long-awaited gadget called AirTag. Users can attach the $29 coin-sized device to valuables such as keys or a backpack, then, if the item gets lost, locate it on a live map inside Apple’s built-in Find My software.



AirTag competes with a number of other products on the market, including from Tile, whose general counsel complained before Congress on Wednesday about Apple’s overall dominance.



But AirTag’s most important differentiating feature isn’t the technology inside the $29 coin-sized stainless steel gadget. It’s other people’s iPhones.



AirTag doesn’t have a GPS signal, which would rapidly drain its battery and raise privacy questions. Instead, when it’s attached to a lost object, it sends out scrambled Bluetooth signals. For those signals to reach the internet and inform the person who’s looking for their lost device, they’ll need to find an iPhone that’s listening for them.



″Using Bluetooth and the hundreds of millions of iOS, iPadOS, and macOS devices in active use around the world, the user can locate a missing device even if it can’t connect to a Wi-Fi or cellular network,” Apple explained in&nbsp;<a href="https://support.apple.com/guide/security/find-my-security-sec6cbc80fd0/web" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a security disclosure about the Find My service</a>. “Any iOS, iPadOS, or macOS device with ‘offline finding’ enabled in Find My settings can act as a ‘finder device.’”



The product represents a new frontier for Apple: using its install base of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/27/apple-aapl-earnings-q1-2021.html">over 1 billion iPhones</a>&nbsp;as infrastructure to build services that its competitors can’t. Now iPhones are part of a physical network out in the world that’s looking out for stolen goods — even if their users have never purchased an AirTag.



“The bottom line is AirTag is an example of Apple leveraging its ecosystem to create a more compelling product than what is currently in the market,” Loup Ventures founder Gene Munster wrote in a newsletter on Tuesday. “Specifically, AirTag will have better navigation and discovery features, along with a billion-plus device network that can be utilized to help locate lost items.”



Enrolling in the Find My network does have benefits to iPhone users who don’t buy AirTags. Many users sign up because the same app can be used to find lost Apple products, and it’s easy to do when signing into an iCloud account on an iPhone.



The Find My network can be used to find an iPhone after it’s been shut off, as thieves often do after stealing a phone. (If the device is on, it can be contacted through Find My iPhone, a similar service that uses the device’s internet connection and predates the Find My network.)



Users can also opt out of the Find My network in Apple’s settings, although that means they don’t get the benefits of the network, such as finding devices that have been turned off or aren’t connected to cellular or Bluetooth. (To do so, go to Settings &gt; Your Name &gt; Find My &gt; Find My iPhone &gt; and then toggle “Find My network” on or off.)



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-vast-global-network">A vast, global network</h2>



The number of devices participating in the network is crucial for a product such as AirTag.



Apple describes its Find My service as a “vast, global network” and allows third-party accessory makers to release products that use it, too.



If an AirTag is lost in the middle of a desert with no Apple devices in Bluetooth range, it can’t connect to the internet to send signals or update the user’s map. But in the middle of an American city, where an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.counterpointresearch.com/us-smartphone-installed-base-sees-steady-2019-growth-strong-top-end-dominance/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">estimated</a>&nbsp;42% of people have iPhones — more in some areas — you’re much more likely to find a device that’s looking for your lost AirTag.



Apple CEO Tim Cook has previously described Apple’s product strategy as “<a href="https://daringfireball.net/2014/06/only_apple" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">only Apple</a>,” suggesting that because the company builds hardware, develops software and runs its own online services, it can introduce features that rivals such as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/MSFT" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Microsoft</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/GOOGL" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Google</a>&nbsp;and Samsung can’t.



While Samsung and other major smartphone vendors have similar numbers of phones in people’s hands, they don’t control the underlying operating system, making features such as Find My much more difficult to implement widely at once.



For Apple, AirTag is probably an effort to add distinguishing features to its iPhone to discourage current users from switching to an Android device. It’s not likely to be a major revenue driver.



“While the Airtags are incremental to our model we do not believe even a very successful launch of that product will have much impact on our forecasts given the low $29 price point,” Goldman Sachs analyst Rod Hall wrote in a note Tuesday.



If Apple becomes more skilled at using its installed devices as privacy-sensitive infrastructure, it could represent a durable advantage for the company. Apple’s installed base of iPhones could become especially important as it invests heavily in augmented reality, a technology that merges the physical and digital worlds.



A network of location-aware iPhones could be used in augmented reality apps such as Pokemon Go, for example, to identify where other players are competing and start a group experience. It provides the sensors and internet connection needed for building digital experiences in the real world without building new equipment each time.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-privacy-angle">The privacy angle</h2>



AirTag also represents a major test for Apple’s privacy positioning.



Since 2015, Apple has advertised privacy and security as major differentiators for its iPhone. It has consistently built systems, such as Covid tracking exposure notifications, that are decentralized, which means they are designed in a way that data is processed and calculated on a device instead of on servers that Apple can access.



Apple is building on that reputation to assure customers that its Find My system won’t leak user location or data when acting as a finding device. Apple says the Find My network keeps location data private and anonymous and that it doesn’t store location data or history.



How Apple pulls it off is a matter of complicated software engineering. “Find My is built on a foundation of advanced public key cryptography,” Apple’s&nbsp;<a href="https://support.apple.com/guide/security/find-my-security-sec6cbc80fd0/web" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">security disclosure says</a>.



Now Apple’s users will need to decide whether they understand and trust the Find My network and Apple — both as users of them, and as iPhone users participating in them to make them work better.

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Apple’s AirTag relies on a feature no competitor can match: 1 billion iPhones

Why It’s So Hard To File And Pay Taxes In The U.S.

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="740" height="416" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106867602-1618330918041-gettyimages-1312152746-_e6w9907_2021041263220008.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-401987" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106867602-1618330918041-gettyimages-1312152746-_e6w9907_2021041263220008.jpeg 740w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106867602-1618330918041-gettyimages-1312152746-_e6w9907_2021041263220008-300x169.jpeg 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" /><figcaption>Chesnot | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



The price of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/bitcoin/">bitcoin</a>&nbsp;tumbled over the weekend and was down as much as 19.5% from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/13/bitcoin-hits-new-all-time-high-above-62000-ahead-of-coinbase-debut.html">record highs</a>&nbsp;posted by the popular cryptocurrency in the past week.



Bitcoin dropped as low as $52,148.98 on Sunday morning after reaching an all-time high&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/14/bitcoin-btc-and-ether-eth-prices-rally-ahead-of-coinbase-listing.html">above $64,800</a>&nbsp;on Wednesday, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/price/bitcoin" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">CoinDesk</a>. It was last trading just over $55,795.



Other cryptocurrencies, including ether and dogecoin, also took a hit over the weekend. The price of <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=ETH=">ether</a>, the second-biggest token by market value, dropped as much as 18% and fell below $2,000 on Sunday before more recently trading at over $2,150. The token had also recently hit record highs, topping $2,500 on Thursday.



Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=DOGE.CM=">dogecoin</a>, which soared more than 400% at one point last week and hit an all-time high of 45 cents, dropped as low as 24 cents this weekend.



What exactly is driving the drop is unclear.



An unverified report on Twitter claimed that the U.S. Treasury Department could be looking to crack down on financial institutions for money laundering using cryptocurrency.



A <a href="https://twitter.com/Fxhedgers/status/1383611847144730626?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1383611847144730626%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnbc.com%2F2021%2F04%2F18%2Fbitcoin-plunges-from-recent-high-as-cryptocurrencies-take-weekend-hit.html">tweet</a> from the account <a href="https://twitter.com/Fxhedgers?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">@Fxhedgers</a> that referred to the possibility of a crackdown, citing unnamed sources, went viral on Saturday evening.



The U.S. Treasury Department did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.



The cryptocurrencies hit record highs this past week amid the excitement surrounding the stock market debut of cryptocurrency trading platform&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/COIN" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Coinbase</a>, which became the largest cryptocurrency company to go public on Wednesday. The company’s blockbuster direct listing briefly valued Coinbase at about&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/15/coinbase-coin-climbs-11percent-in-premarket-after-nasdaq-debut.html">$100 billion</a>&nbsp;(before falling to just over $62 billion by the end of the week), giving a boost to the rest of the cryptocurrency industry.



Despite those record prices, some investors have been concerned that cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/13/bitcoin-is-a-bubble-say-74percent-of-bank-of-america-survey-respondents.html">experiencing a bubble</a>. The recent spike by dogecoin, which&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/29/dogecoin-cryptocurrency-rises-over-400percent-after-reddit-group-talks-it-up.html">started as a joke</a>&nbsp;based on the 2013 “Doge” meme, in particular, has fueled&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/16/dogecoin-doge-price-meme-cryptocurrencys-rise-sparks-bubble-fears.html">concerns of a bubble</a>&nbsp;in the cryptocurrency market.

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Bitcoin tumbles from recent high as cryptocurrencies take weekend hit

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Why boycotting Xinjiang cotton is easier said than done | CNBC Reports

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106628275-15954568332020-07-17t041939z_1023568663_rc2suh9aqmzs_rtrmadp_0_apple-china.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-401858" width="839" height="472" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106628275-15954568332020-07-17t041939z_1023568663_rc2suh9aqmzs_rtrmadp_0_apple-china.jpeg 740w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106628275-15954568332020-07-17t041939z_1023568663_rc2suh9aqmzs_rtrmadp_0_apple-china-300x169.jpeg 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 839px) 100vw, 839px" /><figcaption>People purchase Apple products in the new Apple flagship store on its opening day following an outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Sanlitun in Beijing, China, July 17, 2020. Thomas Peter | Reuters</figcaption></figure>



BEIJING — China reported first-quarter gross domestic product a touch below expectations as industrial production disappointed but retail sales beat.



GDP soared 18.3% in the first three months of the year from a year ago, China’s National Bureau of Statistics said Friday. That’s slightly below expectations of a 19% increase, according to analysts polled by Reuters.



The surge in growth comes off a contraction in the first quarter of last year, when the economy shrank by 6.8% during the height of the domestic outbreak of Covid-19. China was the first country to deal with the disease, and the economy returned to growth by the second quarter of last year.



GDP expanded 10.3% in the first quarter when compared with the same period in 2019, the statistics bureau said.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106618247-1618540456105-China_GDP_quarterly-820x461.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-401859" width="807" height="453" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106618247-1618540456105-China_GDP_quarterly-820x461.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106618247-1618540456105-China_GDP_quarterly-300x169.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106618247-1618540456105-China_GDP_quarterly-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106618247-1618540456105-China_GDP_quarterly-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106618247-1618540456105-China_GDP_quarterly.jpg 1910w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 807px) 100vw, 807px" /></figure>



China also said retail sales rose 34.2% in March, topping expectations of 28% growth.



Industrial production rose 14.1% in March, missing Reuters’ prediction of 17.2% growth.



The slower growth in industrial production came despite more workers staying put during the Spring Festival and not traveling home for what can be a month-long holiday.



The statistics bureau cautioned in an English-language statement that the spread of Covid-19 globally and the “international landscape is complicated with high uncertainties and instabilities.”



“The foundation for domestic recovery is yet to be consolidated and long-standing structural problems remain prominent with new situations and issues arising from development,” the bureau said.



The urban surveyed unemployment rate ticked lower in March to 5.3%, but that of China’s youngest workers aged 16 to 24 remained a high 13.6%, the data showed.



“Young people’s employment problem still needs a period of time to be absorbed,” said Liu Aihua, spokesperson of the National Bureau of Statistics, according to a CNBC translation of her Mandarin-language remarks. “The total pressure in this aspect does exist.”



She added that other surveys have found a shortage in general workers and high-skilled talent. Liu said the bureau recently found in a survey of more than 90,000 industrial businesses that a historically high ratio of 44% said hiring was their biggest problem.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-slowing-growth">Slowing growth</h2>



Friday’s data release pointed to steady but slower growth for China’s economy as it moves beyond the initial burst of growth following the pandemic.



First quarter GDP grew 0.6% from the fourth quarter, a slowdown from a 2.6% quarterly increase in the last three months of 2020.



“We do not expect China’s policymakers to rush into any meaningful tightening, considering that the recovery is still facing headwinds and uncertainties ahead (e.g., domestic demand still quite subdued, consumption recovery remains gradual, and exports that saw extraordinary growth rates at the beginning of this year may later face competition from other re-opening economies),” Bruce Pang, head of macro and strategy research at China Renaissance, said in a statement.



Investment in manufacturing fell 2% on an annualized basis over the last two years, which the statistics bureau spokesperson on Friday attributed to persistent business difficulties and lack of investment confidence.

106628275-15954568332020-07-17t041939z_1023568663_rc2suh9aqmzs_rtrmadp_0_apple-china

China says its economy grew 18.3% in the first quarter, slightly missing expectations

Why Starlink Is Crucial To SpaceX’s Success

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="740" height="416" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106867808-1618348824726-gettyimages-805704838-POLYCHAIN_CARLSON-WEE.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-401779" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106867808-1618348824726-gettyimages-805704838-POLYCHAIN_CARLSON-WEE.jpeg 740w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106867808-1618348824726-gettyimages-805704838-POLYCHAIN_CARLSON-WEE-300x169.jpeg 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" /><figcaption>Olaf Carlson-Wee, founder and chief executive officer of Polychain Capital, speaks during a Bloomberg Technology interview in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Monday, June 26, 2017. David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



Cryptocurrency exchange&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/13/coinbase-reference-price-250-ahead-of-direct-listing.html">Coinbase will go public</a>&nbsp;on Wednesday via a direct listing that’s expected to value the start-up at more than&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/coinbase-debut/coinbase-heads-for-89-bln-valuation-in-nasdaq-debut-idUSL4N2M62R0" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$90 billion</a>&nbsp;when it starts trading this afternoon under the stock ticker “COIN”.



But when Coinbase first launched nine years ago, it hired its very first employee after receiving an enthusiastic, but “annoyingly long” cold email.



And the company paid him in bitcoin.



That email came from Olaf Carlson-Wee, who in 2012 had just graduated from Vassar College with a degree in sociology. He’d written his undergraduate thesis on bitcoin “and the larger implications of open source finance.”



He was also one of Coinbase’s earliest users, he said in a&nbsp;<a href="https://blog.ycombinator.com/employee-1-coinbase/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">2016 interview</a>&nbsp;with the Y Combinator blog, and he wanted to work there.



“I literally cold emailed jobs@coinbase and said, ‘I love bitcoin. Here’s my thesis. I’ll do any job,’” Carlson-Wee told Y Combinator.



After becoming employee No. 1 with a job in customer support at the then-fledgling company, for his three years there, Carlson-Wee was paid entirely in bitcoin, according to the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/olaf-carlson-wee-rode-the-bitcoin-boom-to-silicon-valley-riches-can-he-survive-the-crash-1536681364" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Wall Street Journal</a>, with a starting salary of $50,000.



Though it’s unclear how much bitcoin Carlson-Wee currently owns, during that time — from 2013 to 2016 — the price of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=BTC.CB=">bitcoin</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/14/if-you-put-1000-in-bitcoin-in-2013-heres-how-much-youd-have-now.html">fluctuated</a>&nbsp;dramatically.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.investopedia.com/articles/forex/121815/bitcoins-price-history.asp" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">In early 2013</a>&nbsp;the price was just over $13 per bitcoin before spiking to more than $1,100 later that year. The cryptocurrency ended 2016 at roughly $1,000 and on Wednesday it was trading at more than $62,000.



(As recently as 2018, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/26/in-bitcoin-work-world-job-benefits-like-pay-401k-get-a-rethink.html">roughly 40%</a> of Coinbase employees took at least part of their salary in bitcoin.)



When Carson-Wee sent that cold email, despite attaching his roughly 90-page thesis, he actually heard back from one of Coinbase’s two co-founders, former Goldman Sachs trader&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2014/06/16/disruptors-in-2014-coinbase.html">Fred Ehrsam</a>, five minutes later with an email asking if Carlson-Wee could “hop on a Skype.”



After talking to Ehrsam on Skype for roughly 20 minutes, Carlson-Wee said the Coinbase co-founder invited him in for an in-person interview in San Francisco (Ehrsam was staying with a friend in nearby Oakland). Ehrsam told Carlson-Wee to prepare a pair of 15-minute presentations: ”‘The first should explain something complicated you know very well. The second should outline your vision for Coinbase,’” Carlson-Wee says he was told.



Carlson-Wee said his first presentation was on “the pharmacological induction of lucid dreams,” noting in 2016 that he had been “writing down my dreams for 11 years.”



As for his strategy for Coinbase, Carlson-Wee said he thought the company should “focus 100% on security,” especially in terms of ensuring that users’ cryptocurrency balances were secure from hackers.&nbsp;



“Bad customer experiences will eventually be forgotten but a security incident will not be forgotten,” Carlson-Wee told Y Combinator. “I was saying to [co-founder Brian Armstrong], ‘We cannot hack something together that ends up leading to a security incident. Even though everything is on fire, let’s do this very carefully.’ And I think that resonated with them.”



After giving his presentations, Carlson-Wee said that Ehrsam gave him “a really brutal mathematics problem” to solve.&nbsp;



Here was the math problem, according to Carlson-Wee: “So there are 100 lockers in a row. They’re all closed, okay? A kid goes by. He opens every single locker. A second kid goes by. Now he closes every other locker, every second locker. Third kid comes by, every third locker. If it’s open, he closes it. If it’s closed, he opens it. Then the fourth kid goes by. Every fourth locker, he changes the state. And now 100 kids go by. What is the state of the lockers after 100 kids go by?”



Carlson-Wee did his best to focus on the problem, because he felt that having the correct answer ready by the time Ehrsam brought fellow co-founder Brian Armstrong in to meet Carlson-Wee would really “seal the deal” and land him a job. Fortunately, he ended up landing on the answer in only about three minutes, realizing that only the lockers that would be open are the ones numbered with “perfect squares” (numbers generated by multiplying two equal numbers, so the 16th locker, the 25th locker, etc).



“The number of factors determines whether a locker is open or closed because that’s the number of kids that interacted with it,” he said. “And so the odd number of factors means it’s open and [an] even number of factors means it’s closed. And the only numbers that have an odd number of factors are perfect squares like 16, 25, 36.”&nbsp;



After that, Carlson-Wee said that Armstrong “grilled me for another hour.”&nbsp;



“Brian’s questions were really intense: ‘What do you wanna do with your life?’ ‘What drives you as a person?’ ‘What’s a belief you have that is extremely unpopular?’ He wanted to really know me,” Carlson-Wee told Y Combinator.



Four days after the interview, Carlson-Wee said that Armstrong and Ehrsam reached out to ask him to complete a paid, two-week work trial.&nbsp;



“I worked really hard because I knew this was the final test. At the end of those two weeks they said, ‘Okay. You have a formal job offer,’” said Carlson-Wee, who joined the company as Coinbase’s first employee and worked on customer support (“Like I said, I came in and was willing to do anything,” he added.)



Carlson-Wee was Coinbase’s sole customer support employee until the company had 250,000 users, he said. He worked for the company for three years, eventually becoming Coinbase’s head of risk.



Coinbase hitting the public market is expected to produce a windfall for people like the company’s billionaire co-founders, CEO&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/21/coinbase-ceo-is-first-crypto-billionaire-to-pledge-to-give-away-fortune.html">Brian Armstrong</a>&nbsp;and Fred Ehrsam, as well as Coinbase’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/13/coinbase-listing-could-revalue-crypto-space-blockchain-etf-creator.html">investors</a>&nbsp;and some past and present employees.



Carlson-Wee left Coinbase in 2016 to launch one of the first-ever crypto hedge funds out of his San Francisco apartment. Called Polychain Capital, the fund manages assets valued at more than $300 million, according to Forbes, and it’s landed investments from Ehrsam as well as venture capital firms like Sequoia Capital and Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund. Carlson-Wee’s fund has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.crunchbase.com/search/funding_rounds/field/organizations/num_investments/polychain-capital" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">invested</a>&nbsp;in crypto startups like blockchain-based social network BitClout and blockchain payments startup&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/payments-startup-celo-raises-%2420m-from-a16z-electric-capital-2021-02-10" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Celo</a>.



While it is not clear if Carlson-Wee received any stock in Coinbase as an early employee, he did&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkauflin/2021/01/29/coinbase-investors-say-it-could-hit-100-billion-valuation-when-it-goes-public/?sh=6033b1565b50" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tell Forbes</a>&nbsp;that he invested in the company in 2017, but has not disclosed the size of that investment.



Meanwhile, despite the markets’ excitement over Coinbase’s direct listing, the company and its founders have not been without controversy in recent years.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/29/technology/coinbase-pay-employees.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The New York Times reported</a>&nbsp;last year that Coinbase had underpaid women and Black employees (the company said at the time that Coinbase had “implemented a new compensation program that brought Coinbase in line with some of the world’s most respected technology companies”). In 2020, Armstrong&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businessofbusiness.com/articles/coinbase-ceo-brian-armstrong-controversy-apolitical-memo/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">received criticism</a>&nbsp;for actively discouraging Coinbase employees from voicing political opinions, or engaging in activism around political or social issues, in the workplace.



Armstrong, who even&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/30/coinbase-ceo-offers-severance-to-employees-leaving-over-politics.html">offered four- to six-month severance packages</a>&nbsp;to any employees who weren’t comfortable working under such conditions, said in a blog post in September that he believed companies engaging in political discussions and issues publicly “are well intentioned” but he also believes that such corporate activism has “the potential to destroy a lot of value at most companies, both by being a distraction, and by creating internal division.”



Polychain and Coinbase did not immediately respond to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/make-it/">CNBC Make It</a>’s requests for comment.

106867808-1618348824726-gettyimages-805704838-POLYCHAIN_CARLSON-WEE

Coinbase’s first employee in 2013 cold-emailed the founders for a job — and was paid in bitcoin for 3 years

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="740" height="416" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106412867-1582793917614gettyimages-1726904.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-401775" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106412867-1582793917614gettyimages-1726904.jpeg 740w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106412867-1582793917614gettyimages-1726904-300x169.jpeg 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" /><figcaption>A derek pumps in an oil field in Kuwait near the Saudi Arabian border. Joe Raedle | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



LONDON — The price of oil could plunge to as little as $10 a barrel by 2050 if the world succeeds in electrifying the energy market and meeting Paris Agreement goals, a consultancy said on Thursday.&nbsp;



Energy research and consultancy Wood Mackenzie said in a report that if world leaders took decisive action to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius by 2050, as set out in the landmark Paris climate accord, oil demand would drop “significantly.”&nbsp;



Wood Mackenzie said under its accelerated energy transition scenario, the energy market would be increasingly electrified through to 2050, squeezing out the most polluting hydrocarbons, like oil. 



Under this scenario, oil demand could fall 70% by 2050 from current levels, the report said.



Wood Mackenzie forecast demand for oil would start to fall from 2023 under this scenario and this decline would quickly accelerate thereafter, with year-on-year falls of around 2 million barrels a day.&nbsp;



The report said oil prices could go into “terminal decline,” with international benchmark&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=@LCO.1">Brent crude</a>&nbsp;falling to between $37 and $42 a barrel by 2030.



Brent crude futures traded at $66.29 a barrel during morning deals in London, down around 0.4%.&nbsp;



Wood Mackenzie said oil prices could slide to between $28 and $32 a barrel by 2040, before slipping to between $10 and $18 a barrel in 2050.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-oil-cannot-afford-to-be-complacent">Big Oil ‘cannot afford to be complacent’</h2>



Almost 200 countries ratified the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/13/paris-climate-agreement-all-you-need-to-know.html">Paris climate accord in 2015</a>, agreeing to pursue efforts to limit the planet’s temperature increase to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to cap the temperature rise at 1.5 degrees Celsius. It remains a key focus ahead of COP26, although some climate scientists now believe that hitting the latter target is already “<a href="https://www.science.org.au/supporting-science/science-policy-and-analysis/reports-and-publications/risks-australia-three-degrees-c-warmer-world" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">virtually impossible</a>.”&nbsp;



To be sure, a United Nations analysis published on Feb. 26 found that pledges made by countries around the world to curb greenhouse gas emissions were&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/14/climate-global-fossil-fuel-use-accelerating-and-set-to-get-even-worse.html">“very far” from the profound measures</a>&nbsp;required to avoid the most devastating impacts of climate breakdown.



Ann-Louise Hittle, vice president for macro oils at Wood Mackenzie, stressed that the consultancy’s report was a scenario rather than a “base-case forecast.”&nbsp;



“Even so, the oil and gas industry cannot afford to be complacent,” she added. “The risks associated with robust climate-change policy and rapidly changing technology are too great.”&nbsp;



— CNBC’s Sam Meredith contributed to this report.

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Oil could plummet to $10 by 2050 if Paris climate goals are achieved, energy consultancy says

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="740" height="416" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106052751-1564623137916rtx71q0z.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-401751" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106052751-1564623137916rtx71q0z.jpg 740w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106052751-1564623137916rtx71q0z-300x169.jpg 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" /><figcaption>Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell holds a news conference following the Federal Reserve’s two-day Federal Open Market Committee Meeting in Washington, July 31, 2019. Sarah Silbiger | Reuters</figcaption></figure>



Cryptocurrencies are largely for making bets on price increases and haven’t reached the status of payment mechanisms, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Wednesday.



“They’re really vehicles for speculation,” the central bank leader told The Economic Club of New York in a virtual interview with David Rubenstein, co-founder of the Carlyle Group. “They’re not really being actively used as payments.”



Powell compared crypto to gold.



“For thousands of years, human beings have given gold a special value that it doesn’t have” as an industrial metal, he said.



The comments came the same day&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/13/coinbase-reference-price-250-ahead-of-direct-listing.html">Coinbase went public</a>&nbsp;in a direct listing on the Nasdaq, an exchange that is weighted with tech companies.



Coinbase is the predominant exchange for trading bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. It <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/14/coinbase-to-debut-on-nasdaq-in-direct-listing.html">opened at $381 a share</a>, well above its $250 reference price. The company said it generated $1.8 billion in revenue for the first quarter amid wild price gains for bitcoin, ethereum and other crypto names.



Powell’s predecessor at the Fed, Janet Yellen, is now Treasury secretary. In February,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/22/yellen-sounds-warning-about-extremely-inefficient-bitcoin.html">she told CNBC</a>&nbsp;that she views bitcoin as “a highly speculative asset” and said it is not “widely used as a transmission mechanism” and is an “extremely inefficient way of conducting transactions.”



Along with a brief chat about crypto, the Powell interview encompassed a variety of subjects, much of it familiar ground for the Fed leader.



One revelation was that Powell has yet to meet with President Joe Biden.



Fed watchers have been speculating as to whether Biden will give Powell another term as chair when the current one expires in 2022. Asked in a CBS “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday on whether he wants another term, Powell demurred, saying he’s focused on “doing the best job I can.”



Powell, who was appointed Fed chairman — and harshly criticized — by then-President Donald Trump, said he has had no contact with Biden since the latter became president nearly three months ago.



Asked if he’s ever met Biden, Powell said, “I think I’ve shaken his hand, but I have not really met him and talked to him.”

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As Coinbase debuts, Powell calls cryptocurrencies ‘vehicles for speculation’

Bernard Madoff, mastermind of the biggest investment fraud in U.S. history, ripping off tens of thousands of clients of as much as $65 billion, died Wednesday. He was 82.



His death at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina, was confirmed by the federal Bureau of Prisons.



Madoff died apparently from natural causes, the AP reported earlier, citing an unidentified person familiar with the matter. He would have turned 83 on April 29.



Madoff was serving a 150-year sentence at the prison, where he had been treated for what his attorney called terminal kidney disease. His request for compassionate release from prison was denied in June.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="740" height="416" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/101642593-94945402.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-401724" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/101642593-94945402.jpg 740w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/101642593-94945402-300x169.jpg 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" /><figcaption>Bernard Madoff leaves federal court in New York on Tuesday, March 10, 2009. Jin Lee | Bloomberg | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



He pleaded guilty in 2009 to a scheme that investigators said&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/nov/18/bernard-madoff-fraud-20-years-earlier" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">started in the early 1970s</a>&nbsp;and defrauded as many as&nbsp;37,000 people in 136 countries over four decades by the time Madoff was busted on Dec. 11, 2008 — after his&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna28355942" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">two sons turned him in</a>. Victims included the famous — director Steven Spielberg, actor Kevin Bacon,&nbsp;former New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon,&nbsp;Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Weisel — and ordinary investors, like Burt Ross, who lost $5 million in the scheme.&nbsp;



Madoff insisted the fraud did not begin until the early 1990s, when, he said, “the market stalled due to the onset of the recession and the Gulf War.”



In a 2013 email to CNBC from prison, Madoff claimed the break in the market that started the Great Recession led to his scam.



“I thought this would be only a short-term trade which could be made up once the market became receptive,” he wrote. “The rest is my tragic history of never being able to recover.”



In fact, investigators said, Madoff did not execute a single trade for his advisory clients for years. Rather than employing a so-called split-strike conversion strategy as he claimed, he simply deposited investors’ funds in a Chase bank account, paying off new customers with funds from earlier customers — a classic Ponzi scheme — and providing his clients with falsified account statement. The investment “returns” shown on those statements — some $50 billion in all — were pure fiction.



The scandal at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities shattered investor confidence, which was already damaged by the financial crisis. And it led to sweeping changes at the Securities and Exchange Commission, which missed the fraud for years despite repeated warnings, including from independent investigator Harry Markopolos, who set out to analyze Madoff’s improbable returns and pronounced them fraudulent as early as 2000.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="740" height="416" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106868138-1618407498163-gettyimages-92907815-Was2189779.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-401725" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106868138-1618407498163-gettyimages-92907815-Was2189779.jpeg 740w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106868138-1618407498163-gettyimages-92907815-Was2189779-300x169.jpeg 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" /><figcaption>An illustration of Ponzi scheme mastermind Bernard Madoff portrayed as the “Joker” from Batman is seen on the cover of New York Magazine at a newstand February 24, 2009 in New York. Timothy A. Clary | AFP | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



A subsequent&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sec.gov/files/oig-509-exec-summary.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">investigation by the agency’s inspector general</a>, H. David Kotz, found that rather than following up on clear evidence of fraud, SEC enforcement staffers decided to take Madoff’s word that his operation was legitimate.



“When Madoff provided evasive or contradictory answers to important questions in testimony, they simply accepted as plausible his explanations,” Kotz wrote.



In early 2020, Madoff asked a judge to release him from prison, saying he was in the end stages of kidney disease and was too old for a transplant.



“You know there hasn’t been a day in prison that I haven’t felt the guilt for the pain I caused on the victims and for my family,” he told The Washington Post at the time.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/ponzi-scheme-king-bernie-madoff-who-bilked-investors-out-of-billions-seeks-medical-release-from-prison/2020/02/05/d16a9098-475d-11ea-bc78-8a18f7afcee7_story.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">He said his goal was to explain his actions to his grandchildren.</a>



“You know I lost both my sons, and my wife is not really well. So it’s horrible,” he told the Post. “I was very close with my family. I made a terrible mistake. And you know I suffer with it. I’ll suffer with it when I get out.”



But about four months later, a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/04/bernie-madoff-denied-prison-release-in-fraud-case.html">judge denied the request</a>, saying&nbsp;Madoff committed “one of the most egregious financial crimes of all time,” and that “many people are still suffering.”&nbsp;



Bernard Lawrence Madoff was born in Queens, New York, on April 29, 1938, the&nbsp;<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=CrXCDAAAQBAJ&amp;amp;pg=PP3&amp;amp;lpg=PP3&amp;amp;dq=ralph+madoff+plumber&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=AKHqqLgrVl&amp;amp;sig=ACfU3U2Kfj_u94gJaZuZaFrOWlYP_fEVlw&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=2ahUKEwiuhvT2l-vpAhXGhXIEHfPdA80Q6AEwCnoECAsQAQ#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=ralph%20madoff%20plumber&amp;amp;f=false" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">son of Sylvia and Ralph Madoff,</a>&nbsp;a plumber who became a stockbroker.&nbsp;



For more than 50 years, Bernie Madoff was renowned on Wall Street, a big money manager who founded his own firm at age 22 and became nonexecutive chairman of the Nasdaq in 1990.&nbsp;He was credited with helping develop some of the systems and market structures that moved the stock market beyond the trading floor and gave rise to modern, electronic trading.



But Madoff’s life came crashing down in 2008, during the depths of the financial crisis.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="740" height="416" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106615678-1594744858572gettyimages-94935742.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-401726" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106615678-1594744858572gettyimages-94935742.jpeg 740w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106615678-1594744858572gettyimages-94935742-300x169.jpeg 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" /><figcaption>Bernie Madoff walks out of Manhattan federal court in New York, U.S., on Monday, Jan. 5, 2009. Jin Lee | Bloomberg | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



Flooded with redemption requests from his clients, Madoff could not keep the scam going any longer. On Dec. 10, 2008, he confessed to his sons, Mark and Andrew, that the investment advisory business was all a lie. Madoff had hoped to buy some time to distribute hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses to employees, then wind down the firm. But Mark and Andrew, who were senior managers in the firm’s trading operation — which operated separately from the fraudulent advisory business — would have none of it, and alerted authorities on the spot.



A day later, on Dec. 11, 2008, the FBI raided his offices in the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/15/business/15madoff.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Lipstick Building</a>&nbsp;on Midtown Manhattan’s Third Avenue.&nbsp;



On March 12, 2009, Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 federal crimes and admitted to operating the largest private Ponzi scheme in history. He was sentenced three months later to the maximum sentence: 150 years in prison with restitution of $170 billion.



In court, he insisted that it was all his idea — that his family knew nothing — even though his wife, Ruth, had once kept the books, his sons were senior officers, and his younger brother, Peter, was chief compliance officer. Charles Spada, an attorney for Peter Madoff, declined to comment Wednesday.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="740" height="416" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106615690-1594745270529preview.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-401727" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106615690-1594745270529preview.jpg 740w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106615690-1594745270529preview-300x169.jpg 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" /><figcaption>Andrew Madoff sits between his girlfriend, Catherine Hooper, and his mother, Ruth Madoff, while appearing on NBC’s “TODAY” show in 2011. Peter Kramer | NBC NewsWire | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



But a trustee appointed to track down funds for investors did not buy it. Irving H. Picard sued dozens of people and entities, including Madoff’s family members, alleging they either knew about the fraud or turned a blind eye, while reaping millions of dollars in benefits.



For older son Mark, the suspicion was too much. In 2010, two years to the day of his father’s arrest, he&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/business/12madoff.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">became the third suicide linked to the fraud</a>. He was 46. Four years later,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/04/business/andrew-madoff-son-of-convicted-financier-dies-at-48.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Andrew died of lymphoma</a>&nbsp;at age 48.



Picard eventually reached settlements with the sons’ estates, and with Ruth Madoff, who has continued to deny any knowledge of the fraud, and is reportedly living modestly in Connecticut.



In the end, in addition to Madoff, more than a dozen individuals, including Peter Madoff, were convicted of federal crimes, but none of the others was accused of knowing about the fraud. <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/JPM" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">JPMorgan Chase</a>, Madoff’s primary bank, paid $2.6 billion to the U.S. government and Madoff victims in 2014 to settle allegations that it did not maintain adequate controls. After Chase instituted some unspecified reforms, prosecutors dropped charges against the bank.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="740" height="416" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106615704-1594745571591gettyimages-107552659.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-401728" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106615704-1594745571591gettyimages-107552659.jpeg 740w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106615704-1594745571591gettyimages-107552659-300x169.jpeg 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" /><figcaption>Medical examiners remove the body of Mark Madoff from his New York apartment on Dec. 11, 2010. Emmanuel Dunnand | AFP | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



As of mid-2020, Picard had recovered more than $14 billion for Madoff’s customers, or roughly 75 cents for every dollar in principal they invested, a figure normally unheard of in a Ponzi scheme.



“The pain experienced by the victims of Mr. Madoff’s fraud is not diminished by his death, nor is our work on behalf of his victims finished,” Picard said in a statement Wednesday. “My legal team and I are committed to continuing to identify and recover Mr. Madoff’s stolen funds and return them to their rightful owners.”



From prison, Madoff repeatedly tried to take credit for the recoveries, claiming he pressured his biggest investors to return some of their money.



“Those parties were well aware of the incriminating evidence I possessed about their complicit activity, and wisely came forward with settlements,” he wrote in 2013.



But Picard and federal investigators said Madoff never provided them any meaningful help. The remorse he claimed in every message was suspect as well. At his 2009 sentencing, Madoff turned to his victims. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know that doesn’t help you.”



It didn’t.



Cheers erupted as federal Judge Denny Chin ordered the maximum sentence for “extraordinarily evil” crimes.



Ross, a former mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey, who testified at the hearing,&nbsp;told Chin:&nbsp;“Commit Madoff to prison for the rest of his life.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2009/06/29/madoff-sentence-cheered-seen-as-strong-message.html">May Satan grow a fourth mouth where Madoff can spend the rest of eternity.</a>”



In an email to CNBC on Wednesday, lead Madoff prosecutor Marc Litt said: “It is unfortunately fitting that he died in jail.”



&nbsp;“I think I speak for the team that prosecuted Mr. Madoff and his associates when I say that his passing closes a dark chapter of deception and greed that irretrievably damaged the lives of tens of thousands of victims,” said Litt, now in private practice. “From start to finish, this episode has brought nothing but devastation to everyone he touched.”



Madoff’s attorney in recent years, Brandon Sample, said in an email Wednesday that his client “up until his death, lived with guilt and remorse for his crimes. Although the crimes Bernie was convicted of have come to define who he was — he was also a father and a husband. He was soft spoken and an intellectual. Bernie was by no means perfect. But no man is.”



&nbsp;—CNBC’s Jim Forkin contributed to this report.

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Bernie Madoff, mastermind of the nation’s biggest investment fraud, dies at 82

How Coupon Code Curators Like Honey And Slickdeals Make Millions

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106867612-1618331518469-gettyimages-1304243721-_48p3885_2021022670152351.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-401664" width="840" height="472" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106867612-1618331518469-gettyimages-1304243721-_48p3885_2021022670152351.jpeg 740w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106867612-1618331518469-gettyimages-1304243721-_48p3885_2021022670152351-300x169.jpeg 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 840px) 100vw, 840px" /><figcaption>Chesnot | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/COIN" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Coinbase</a>&nbsp;is set to go public through a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/13/coinbase-is-unlike-any-market-debut-wall-street-has-ever-seen-.html">blockbuster direct listing</a>&nbsp;Wednesday, and investors are hailing it as a “watershed” moment for the cryptocurrency industry.



The digital currency exchange could be valued at as much as $100 billion, making it more valuable than major trading venue operators like New York Stock Exchange parent&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/ICE" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Intercontinental Exchange</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/NDAQ" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Nasdaq</a>.



It comes as the prices of bitcoin and other virtual currencies have soared over the past year, as investors looked to diversify their portfolios in the belief that a spike in inflation is coming. <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=BTC.CB=">Bitcoin</a> hit a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/13/bitcoin-hits-new-all-time-high-above-62000-ahead-of-coinbase-debut.html">fresh record high</a> of more than $64,000 on Wednesday and has more than doubled in value year-to-date.



Coinbase’s public market debut is “potentially a watershed event for the crypto industry and will be something the Street will be laser focused on to gauge investor appetite,” said Dan Ives, a tech analyst at Wedbush Securities.



“It’s going to legitimize a lot of what these companies are doing,” Marcus Swanepoel, CEO of London-based crypto platform Luno, said of the Coinbase debut. “For one, it’s going to show just how big the industry is and how much it’s growing.”



Coinbase is the largest cryptocurrency company to go public so far. It’s the world’s second-largest digital asset exchange by trading volume, according to CoinMarketCap, and has been credited with bringing crypto into the mainstream with its easy-to-use app.



But there are a number of risks ahead. Cryptocurrencies are notorious for their wildly volatile price moves, and skeptics think it may be in a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/13/bitcoin-is-a-bubble-say-74percent-of-bank-of-america-survey-respondents.html">massive market bubble</a> that’s bound to burst at some point. Meanwhile, global regulators are increasingly trying to bring crypto under their oversight, with India’s government even <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/15/india-plans-cryptocurrency-ban-will-penalize-miners-and-traders.html">looking to ban digital currencies</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-volatility">Volatility</h2>



Coinbase <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/06/coinbase-reports-estimated-q1-revenue-of-1point8-billion-up-nine-fold.html">estimates</a> it made $1.8 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2021, a whopping 844% increase compared to the $190.6 million it generated in the same period a year earlier. That was largely thanks to the huge jumps in price from digital coins like bitcoin and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=ETH=">ether</a>.



Given Coinbase’s business is heavily tied to the performance of major cryptocurrencies, there’s a risk that momentum could swing the other way if there’s a significant pullback in the market.



“Crypto companies will need to figure out how to diversify their revenue streams eventually,” said Hunter Merghart, a former Coinbase executive who is now head of U.S. for Luxembourg-headquartered cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp.



“I think right now we are still very much in the investment phase and the overall crypto pie will continue to grow.”



Bitcoin notoriously rose to almost $20,000 in late 2017, before crashing to almost $3,000 the following year. This price volatility has been a key criticism from bitcoin’s detractors, who say it fails key tests for currencies, like acting as a medium of exchange or store of value.



However, crypto investors believe such a precipitous price drop — known in the industry as “crypto winter” — is unlikely in the near future. They see bitcoin as a sort of “digital gold” that’s uncorrelated with other assets and can serve as a hedge against rising inflation.



“There’s been many surges in the price of bitcoin over the last 10 years,” said Swanepoel. “When it does come down, it sets a new baseline and the growth continues on that new baseline.”



“I actually think the baseline is going to be significantly higher out of this cycle,” he added. “If you look at commodity markets, they have normal cycles and then they have ‘super cycles.’ I suspect this is a super cycle for crypto. It can accelerate a lot longer now.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Regulation</h2>



Earlier this year, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/currencies/news/bitcoin-price-cryptocurrency-should-be-curtailed-terrorism-concerns-yellen-2021-1-1029985692" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">warned</a> in her confirmation hearing that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are mainly used for illicit activity and that the government may need to “curtail” their use.



Coinbase says it’s regulated and has partnerships with a number of banks. But it warned in its prospectus that negative changes to regulations could “adversely affect” its financial condition.



Before former President Donald Trump’s term ended, the Treasury Department&nbsp;<a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm1216" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">proposed a rule</a>&nbsp;that would require financial services firms to record the identities of cryptocurrency holders. This&nbsp;<a href="https://squareup.com/gb/en/press/fincen-letter" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">proved controversial</a>&nbsp;with many crypto firms.



“Regulatory risk is high because crypto platforms are currently not subject to the same rules as traditional exchanges or trading platforms are,” said Stéphane Renevier, an analyst at financial education platform Finimize.



“Some of Coinbase’s activities (such as some of its prime brokerage services and its use of its own capital to trade) might be subject to tighter regulatory oversight in the future,” he added. “Given that the regulatory landscape is evolving extremely rapidly, the company is always at risk from a change in status, which could impact some of its most profitable activities.”



Jesse Powell, CEO of Coinbase rival Kraken, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/12/bitcoin-kraken-ceo-jesse-powell-warns-of-cryptocurrency-crackdown.html">told CNBC</a> that he thinks there “could be some crackdown” on cryptocurrencies.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">‘Crypto’s tech giant’</h2>



Garry Tan, founder of venture capital firm Initialized and an early investor in Coinbase, said the cryptocurrency market was still in its infancy.



“We’re not there yet,” he told CNBC. “We’re still in the very early innings of that, but it’s not so crazy any more.”



But Tan and other Coinbase bulls say the company has created a competitive “moat” around its business that should allow it to flourish even with the advent of new regulations.



“Coinbase is like crypto’s tech giant,” Tan added. “Coinbase’s (debut), and it existing as one of the cornerstone tech companies in Silicon Valley, is very powerful because it means that, just as the personal computer revolution needed Apple and Microsoft, the crypto revolution needs Coinbase.”



Crypto industry insiders say that Coinbase is just one part of the story. There are other emerging trends in the market, such as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/03/what-are-nfts-all-you-need-to-know-about-crypto-collectibles.html">digital collector’s items</a>&nbsp;and so-called decentralized finance, which aims to recreate traditional financial products without middlemen like the banks. Plus, Coinbase may face steeper competition from rivals such as Binance and Kraken, the latter of which is&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/12/bitcoin-kraken-ceo-jesse-powell-warns-of-cryptocurrency-crackdown.html">weighing its own share listing</a>&nbsp;for next year.

106867612-1618331518469-gettyimages-1304243721-_48p3885_2021022670152351

Coinbase’s blockbuster debut is a ‘watershed’ for crypto — but there are risks ahead

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106867607-1618331187485-gettyimages-1231388086-PGONCHAR_W2097.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-401625" width="837" height="471" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106867607-1618331187485-gettyimages-1231388086-PGONCHAR_W2097.jpeg 740w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106867607-1618331187485-gettyimages-1231388086-PGONCHAR_W2097-300x169.jpeg 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 837px) 100vw, 837px" /><figcaption>Pavlo Gonchar | LightRocket | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/13/bitcoin-hits-new-all-time-high-above-62000-ahead-of-coinbase-debut.html?&amp;amp;qsearchterm=bitcoin">Bitcoin has been surging to record highs</a>, ahead of Wednesday’s stock debut of crypto exchange&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/COIN" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Coinbase</a>, and some analysts say the offering could be a potential pivotal moment for cryptocurrencies.



<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=BTC.CM=">Bitcoin</a> was trading <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/13/bitcoin-hits-new-all-time-high-above-62000-ahead-of-coinbase-debut.html">up more than 5% Tuesday</a>, above $63,220, according to Coin Metrics. Coinbase’s direct listing is expected to be a watershed moment for the crypto world and is likely to result in new offerings from other crypto-related entities. Coinbase is expected to price upwards of $60 billion and to as much as $100 billion.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="471" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106867608-1618331210435-20210413_bitcoin_1yr-820x471.png" alt="" class="wp-image-401639" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106867608-1618331210435-20210413_bitcoin_1yr-820x471.png 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106867608-1618331210435-20210413_bitcoin_1yr-300x172.png 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106867608-1618331210435-20210413_bitcoin_1yr-768x441.png 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106867608-1618331210435-20210413_bitcoin_1yr-1536x882.png 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106867608-1618331210435-20210413_bitcoin_1yr.png 1910w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /></figure>



“I’m not surprised the cryptos are running. Part of this is for the crypto community, nobody wants to be selling in front of the Coinbase offering,” said Fundstrat founder Tom Lee. “In the crypto market, if the sellers are on a selling hiatus, the price is going to keep going up&#8230;It’s kind of like you have a selling strike in front of the listing.”



Other cryptocurrencies also surged. <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=ETH.CM=">Ether,</a> for one, was trading at a new high Wednesday. It was up 6.7% at $2,280, according to Coin Metrics. Analysts said the Coinbase debut is driving interest in the entire crypto universe, luring in new investors and likely encouraging other entities related to the market to issue their own stock.



“We’re finding as the market awaits this IPO what we’re seeing is investors talking more about bitcoin as a hedge against the potential for higher inflation and the debasing of the dollar and the extreme amounts of government spending and government debt,” said Julian Emanuel, head of equity and derivatives strategy at BTIG.



Emanuel said how bitcoin reacts this week could set the tone in the cryptocurrency market for weeks to come. He said there was substantial resistance at $62,000, which it has now blown through, and there is solid support at its 50-day moving average, near $54,900.



“We will note the whole space has run a very long way. There are signs in the last week or two there’s a little bit of indigestion in the NFT [nonfungible tokens] market. We’ve seen a discount to NAV in one of the more established trust products,” Emanuel said. “All of these things tell us if you are looking to make a short-term trade on the rising price of bitcoin or ether, or whatever have you, based on the success of this week’s capital markets activity, that’s not a good reason to own something that has dropped 30%, 40%, 50% and already has done so on a couple of occasions.”



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="471" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106867609-1618331241150-20210413_ethereum_1yr-820x471.png" alt="" class="wp-image-401638" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106867609-1618331241150-20210413_ethereum_1yr-820x471.png 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106867609-1618331241150-20210413_ethereum_1yr-300x172.png 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106867609-1618331241150-20210413_ethereum_1yr-768x441.png 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106867609-1618331241150-20210413_ethereum_1yr-1536x882.png 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/106867609-1618331241150-20210413_ethereum_1yr.png 1910w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /></figure>



The value of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/GBTC" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Grayscale Bitcoin Trust</a>&nbsp;is below the value of the digital assets it holds, and an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-06/grayscale-bitcoin-trust-assailed-by-investor-as-discount-grows?sref=RkLlBPFc" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">activist family office, Marlton LLC has sent a letter to Grayscale Investments</a>&nbsp;seeking a tender offter to boost the price, according to a Bloomberg report.



If bitcoin holds its gains after the Coinbase offer, that would be a positive for crypto assets. “The long term story is very positive and&#8230;if in fact, digital assets hold in or continue to rally after the [Coinbase offering] is out and digested, it’s an even more positive reflection of the embracing of digital assets’ long-term potential.”



Lee said he doesn’t know how bitcoin and others will trade after the Coinbase offer, but the rise in the cryptocurrencies is driving more interest in the crypto exchange.



“It’s sort of feeding on itself. They’re less likely to sell crypto because they think Coinbase is going to help it. It’s a self-reinforcing dynamic,” said Lee.



Coinbase would be valued more than Nasdaq, which has a market cap of $25.9 billion and probably the Interncontinental Exchange, valued at more than $66.9 billion.



He said it is a positive for the currency market that Coinbase is going public. “They make more money than any publicly listed exchange in the world. They’ll make more money than Nasdaq&#8230;Coinbase is also not the most profitable cyrpto exchange in the world,” Lee said.



From a chart perspective, bitcoin does look set for more gains.



Katie Stockton, chief technical strategist at Fairlead Strategies, said she had been looking for a breakout for bitcoin above $61,742, which was the March high. It broke that level earlier on Wednesday.



“If bitcoin accomplishes this, a measured move projection would target $69,121 with a short-term time horizon,” she wrote. If it doesn’t hold that level, the 50-day moving average could provide support, she noted.

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