Coinbase, the huge publicly traded US cryptocurrency exchange, is set to raise a staggering $1.5 billion in a funding round. The popular bitcoin (BTC) exchange announced this on September 13 through a press release.
Coinbase wants to raise the amount from investors with the sale of corporate bonds. The company aims to strengthen its balance sheet with this. In addition, Coinbase plans to use the proceeds for “general corporate purposes,” including product development. The proceeds may also be used for the potential acquisition of other companies, products or technologies, the press release said.
It recently emerged that Coinbase had received a so-called “Wells Notice” from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). It is the usual way of a US regulator to indicate that the agency may intend to sue a company. The indictment would be about a new loan service from Coinbase that has not yet been launched.
However, there are currently rumors that company executives have massively dumped COIN shares following the SEC’s announcement. Coinbase denies this in a press release on September 12. The company says these executives had already made plans for the sale long before the Wells Notice, namely on June 1.
Recently we’ve seen a number of false claims connecting Coinbase executive stock sales with the Wells Notice we received from the SEC on Sept. 1. The assertion that Coinbase’s executives sold shares because of this is patently false. https://t.co/7Rdil6oOaR
— Coinbase (@coinbase) September 13, 2021
“As noted in the SEC filings, these sales were part of pre-approved and pre-planned 10b5-1 plans set up by members of Coinbase’s executive team and board of directors. These types of plans are very common for publicly traded company insiders and are designed to prevent individuals from making their own decisions about the timing of stock sales with the intent of preventing insider trading.”
In April, shortly after Coinbase’s IPO, people like Peter Schiff also claimed that Coinbase executives were dumping their shares. None of that was true, Coinbase says. Nevertheless, the COIN price continues to fall since listing.