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TOPLINE Shares of Coinbase, the nation’s largest crypto exchange, skyrocketed nearly 60% within minutes of their public-market debut on Wednesday, propelling the nine-year-old company’s market capitalization to more than 12 times its last private valuation of $8 billion in 2018 and marking another instance of booming demand lifting the still-nascent cryptocurrency space to meteoric highs.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h4>



Listed on the Nasdaq exchange under the ticker COIN, shares started trading at about 1:30 p.m. EDT Wednesday and immediately surged to a price of more than $398, eclipsing the $250 reference price set on Tuesday.



The soaring stock price boosted the firm’s market capitalization to roughly $105 billion, making Coinbase one of the 100 most valuable publicly traded companies in the United States and more valuable than both New York Stock Exchange parent Intercontinental Exchange and Nasdaq Inc.—combined.



Eschewing the traditional initial public offering that enlists investment banks as intermediaries and underwriters to sell shares ahead of trading, San Francisco-based Coinbase opted instead for a&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/">direct listing</a>, selling 114.9 million shares on Wednesday directly to the public.



“I wanted there to be just a true market on day one that set the price, not something that was set behind closed doors,” Coinbase&#8217;s billionaire CEO, Brian Armstrong, said on CNBC Wednesday, calling the direct listing “more true to the ethos of crypto.”



Ahead of its listing, Coinbase&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/04/06/coinbase-posts-record-18-billion-revenue-as-crypto-market-shoots-past-2-trillion-direct-listing/">reported</a>&nbsp;first-quarter revenue that climbed nearly 900% from $190.6 million in the same period last year, blowing past the $585 million it nabbed in the fourth quarter.



Update 5 p.m. EDT: Coinbase shares closed Wednesday at a price of roughly $328, up 31% from the reference price and giving Coinbase a market capitalization of about $86 billion.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE&nbsp;</h4>



“The Coinbase [listing] is a watershed moment and historical event for the crypto industry and something Wall Street will be laser-focused on to gauge investor appetite going forward,” Wedbush Analyst Dan Ives said in a Wednesday morning note to clients, calling Coinbase a “barometer” for growing mainstream [crypto] adoption.&nbsp;



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h4>



Coinbase’s foray into the public market comes after a massive year of growth for cryptocurrencies, fueled by inflationary concerns and heightened institutional adoption. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs started offering cryptocurrency to their wealthy clients just last month, and companies like Tesla, MicroStrategy and payments fintech Square have purchased billions of dollars of bitcoin as a means to diversify their largely U.S. dollar-based balance sheets. Up a staggering 825% over the past year, bitcoin hit its latest high, of just under $65,000, early Wednesday morning. The total cryptocurrency market is worth more than $2.2 trillion.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-chief-critic">CHIEF CRITIC</h4>



“Even though Coinbase’s revenue surged over the past 12 months, the company has little to no chance of meeting the future profit expectations that are baked into its ridiculously high expected valuation of $100 billion,” says David Trainer, the CEO of investment research firm New Constructs. “The crypto markets are very young, and we expect many more companies to compete for the profits Coinbase enjoys today.”



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">TANGENT</h4>



Coinbase joins a growing rank of buzzy tech companies that have started trading over the past year—to varying degrees of fanfare. Gen-Z gaming platform Roblox, which similarly opted for a direct listing, jumped more than 50% on its&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/03/10/roblox-valuation-hits-42-billion-as-gen-z-gaming-giant-skyrockets-50-in-ipo/">first trading day</a>&nbsp;in January and has since climbed about 6% higher. Airbnb and Doordash debuted in December, and both roughly doubled on their first day of trading, but&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2020/12/10/airbnb-ipo-shares-valuation-billion-more-than-marriott-hilton-hyatt/">Airbnb</a>&nbsp;has jumped about 25% since then, while&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2020/12/09/doordash-ipo-shares-first-day-of-trading/">DoorDash</a>&nbsp;has tanked 23%.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-to-watch-for">WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h4>



Crypto regulation. “With cryptocurrencies’ astronomical price jumps, and as they become increasingly embedded in the global financial system, investors must expect much greater government scrutiny,” Nigel Green, the CEO of $12 billion advisory deVere Group, said in a Wednesday note, adding that Coinbase’s direct listing will help the firm reach a wider investment base other than “the usual crypto evangelists.” Gary Gensler, a blockchain and cryptocurrency professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/04/14/gary-gensler-confirmed-sec-chairman/">confirmed</a>&nbsp;as the Securities and Exchange Commission’s new chairman on Wednesday, and one SEC official has said&nbsp; he’s “sympathetic to the call for regulatory clarity” in the space.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h4>



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/04/13/bitcoin-hits-new-high-ahead-of-coinbase-listing-but-74-of-fund-managers-think-its-just-a-bubble/">Bitcoin Hits New High Ahead Of Coinbase Listing, But 74% Of Fund Managers Think It&#8217;s Just A Bubble</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/04/06/coinbase-posts-record-18-billion-revenue-as-crypto-market-shoots-past-2-trillion-direct-listing/">Coinbase Posts Record $1.8 Billion In Revenue As Crypto Market Shoots Past $2 Trillion</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2020/02/19/coinbase-billionaire-brian-armstrongs-plan-to-make-bitcoin-ethereum-xrp-safe-for-all/">Bitcoin&#8217;s Guardian Angel: Inside Coinbase Billionaire Brian Armstrong&#8217;s Plan To Make Crypto Safe For All</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkauflin/2021/01/29/coinbase-investors-say-it-could-hit-100-billion-valuation-when-it-goes-public/">Coinbase Investors Say It Could Hit $100 Billion Valuation When It Goes Public</a> (Forbes)



By Jonathan Ponciano, Forbes Staff

In this photo illustration, the Nasdaq Stock Market logo

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Microsoft’s $19.7 billion acquisition of artificial intelligence speech recognition company Nuance Communications, the software giant’s largest since its $26 billion purchase of LinkedIn in 2016, may signal a new binge of takeovers aimed at buttressing cash-rich Microsoft’s presence in an array of enterprise and consumer-facing businesses. Microsoft had a cash pile of more than $130 billion as of December. Its acquisition of Nuance, which pioneered the software behind Apple’s Siri virtual assistant and now focuses on speech recognition and automation for medical providers, shows the breadth of CEO Satya Nadella’s ambitions to expand beyond Microsoft’s core enterprise software business, analysts say.



“Nadella is on the M&amp;A warpath,” says Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities. “The next frontier for Microsoft is not just sitting on its success.”&nbsp;



Microsoft bought video game holding company ZeniMax Media, owner of the Doom and Wolfenstein game series, among others, for $7.5 billion in September. Before that, it tried to acquire parts of TikTok, the wildly popular short-form video sharing app, but lost out to software rival Oracle. And Microsoft is said to be in talks to buy Discord, a popular chat app, for more than $10 billion. Big winners in the Nuance deal include the speech recognition company’s largest investors, Vanguard Group, Viking Global Investors and ClearBridge Investments. The company’s three largest individual shareholders are executives at the company: Robert Weideman, an executive vice president who has been at Nuance since 2003, owns nearly 340,00 shares, worth $19 million in the transaction. Daniel Tempesta, chief financial officer and executive vice president, owns 293,550 shares, or $16.4 million. Mark Benjamin, who became chief executive officer of Nuance in 2018, owns just over 160,000 shares, worth $9 million in the deal.



While ZeniMax, TikTok and Discord are all plays in the consumer market — in which Microsoft lags behind other tech giants — Nuance is a deal to bolster its enterprise business. Based in Burlington, Massachusetts, Nuance is the maker of speech recognition and artificial intelligence technology that has shifted its focus primarily to the healthcare sector, with over 60% of its revenue coming from that industry. Microsoft’s purchase of Nuance, announced Monday, includes $16 billion in cash and $3.7 billion in assumed debt. Nuance artificial intelligence technology could be applied to other industries for which Microsoft operates industry-specific clouds, including retail, manufacturing, financial services and nonprofits, says Mark Moerdler, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein &amp; Co.&nbsp; “The capabilities of what Nuance owns are applicable outside of the healthcare industry,” Moerdler says.



Enterprise software has been Microsoft’s crown jewel for some time. It has expanded beyond its Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, Microsoft Office suite and its Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers by successfully establishing its foothold in cloud with Azure, its cloud computing service that now competes directly with Amazon Web Services (AWS). Its acquisition of LinkedIn makes it the operator of the most popular professional-oriented social network.



In a foreshadowing of its latest acquisition, Microsoft partnered with Nuance last year to launch Dragon Ambient Experience, a product that records and transcribes physician-patient conversations, automatically filling out electronic medical records. The product “was a solution for telehealth in response to the overwhelming increase in virtual visits sparked by the Covid-19 global pandemic,” a Nuance&nbsp;<a href="https://news.nuance.com/2020-04-20-Nuance-Launches-Dragon-Ambient-eXperience-for-Telehealth-Compatible-with-Any-Telehealth-Platform" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">press release</a>&nbsp;stated at the time. The next month, Microsoft announced it was building Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, which officially launched in October.&nbsp;



“When you look at the specific tech that Nuance brings in terms of speech recognition and conversational AI, Microsoft has been clearly heavily investing in that area for some time on its own,” says Jay Vleeschhouwer of Griffin Securities.&nbsp;



Some of the largest healthcare companies are Nuance customers, including Athena Health, John Hopkins School of Medicine, Cerner, Epic, Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Yale New Haven Health. This gives Microsoft an opportunity to incorporate those clients and drive more traffic into Azure — an important strategy for the company, according to Michael Turits, an analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets. “[Microsoft] is spending billions of dollars to build out Azure, and it is a factory. Now let’s fill up the factory.”&nbsp;



Some analysts say it was a blessing that Microsoft’s attempt to buy TikTok failed. “The best thing that ever happened for Microsoft is that deal not happening,” Ives said of Wedbush. “It would have just added uncertainty to Microsoft at a time when the company is firing in all cylinders.” The flurry of actual and attempted dealmaking shows that Microsoft wants to compete in consumer tech. “I believe they need to be more aggressive on the consumer side because that’s the area where they’re playing behind the eight ball,” he says.



Discord, a videogame-focused messaging platform, would be a consumer play for Microsoft that some analysts believe would mesh well with its gaming business. Microsoft has the console XBox, game streaming service XCloud, and a Netflix-for-gaming product called GamePass.



Future acquisition targets for Microsoft remain to be seen, but they are likely to be companies that can drive growth for the company’s current products, says Moerdler of Sanford C. Bernstein. “It’s not about buying a company because it’s growing well or buying revenue,” he says. “It’s buying things that can positively disrupt its own business.”



By Angel Au-Yeung, Forbes Staff

Day Two Of The World Economic Forum (WEF) 2020

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TOPLINE The number of new coronavirus infections in India surged this week, making its outbreak the fastest-growing in the world as it struggles with widespread vaccine shortages and a low vaccination rate.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h4>



India reported 145,384 new coronavirus cases Saturday, the fifth time&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-india-idUSKBN2BX031" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">this week</a>&nbsp;that the country set a new daily infection record, following more than a month of precipitously increasing case counts, according to data compiled by&nbsp;<a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/india" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Johns Hopkins University</a>.



Daily coronavirus case counts in India are now larger than in any other country, far surpassing previous frontrunners&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2021/03/13/brazil-now-has-the-worlds-worst-covid-outbreak-experts-blame-variants/?sh=30487e4478b1">Brazil</a>&nbsp;(which reported&nbsp;<a href="https://covid.saude.gov.br/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">about 93,000</a>&nbsp;new cases Saturday) and the United States (at&nbsp;<a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/united-states" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">just under 83,000</a>&nbsp;new cases).



Still, India has averaged about 84.2 new cases per million residents over the past week, a much lower rate than less populous countries like the United States (205.1) and Brazil (311.2), per statistics from Oxford’s&nbsp;<a href="https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Our World In Data</a>&nbsp;project.



Deaths in India have also gradually climbed in recent weeks, reaching 794&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mohfw.gov.in/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">on Saturday</a>, which is significantly lower than in&nbsp;<a href="https://covid.saude.gov.br/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Brazil</a>&nbsp;(3,693) and the&nbsp;<a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/united-states" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">United States</a>&nbsp;(958) and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-09-16-20-intl/h_2e2f271cc29816352e45c39c79fef5ba" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">still below</a>&nbsp;India’s September peak.



Hard-hit states like Maharashtra, home to Mumbai,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbctv18.com/healthcare/no-intention-to-put-a-full-lockdown-in-maharashtra-says-health-minister-tope-8885671.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">imposed weekend lockdowns</a>&nbsp;starting Friday, aiming to curb infections as hospitals in the densely populated state&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-india-maharashtra-idUSKBN2BT15V" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">overflow with sick patients</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-india-maharashtra-idUSKBN2BT15V" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">run low on oxygen</a>.



Local experts say&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/global-trade-mumbai-india-coronavirus-pandemic-infectious-diseases-3f8acdda6d595da27980ac2a8072ab88" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">India’s cases</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/global-trade-mumbai-india-coronavirus-pandemic-infectious-diseases-3f8acdda6d595da27980ac2a8072ab88" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">are surging</a>&nbsp;partly because many people have stopped following social distancing guidelines and&nbsp;<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/india-sees-lockdowns-coronavirus-cases-rise-76038339" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">returned</a>&nbsp;to normal routines, and the federal government is unwilling to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/covid19-in-india-hard-lockdown-ruled-out-pm-modi-says-focus-on-testing-101617925294364.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reimpose</a>&nbsp;last year’s strict&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/world/asia/india-coronavirus-lockdown.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">national lockdowns</a>.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-number">BIG NUMBER</h4>



6.3%. That the share of India’s population that has received at least one coronavirus vaccine dose, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mohfw.gov.in/pdf/CumulativeCOVIDVaccinationCOverageReport9thApril2021.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">government figures</a>. The country’s vaccination rate is lagging behind wealthier countries with severe coronavirus outbreaks like Mexico (7%), Brazil (9.5%) and the United States (34.5%), per data compiled by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Bloomberg</a>.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">TANGENT</h4>



India is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of Covid-19 vaccines, with the Serum Institute of India&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-56513371" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">exporting tens of millions</a>&nbsp;of doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine, yet the country is grappling with painful shortages at home. India’s vaccination campaign has sped up in recent weeks, but vaccine clinics still&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/india-faces-covid-19-vaccine-shortage-as-cases-surge-11617970632" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reportedly</a>&nbsp;don’t have enough shots to keep up with demand.&nbsp;



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-to-watch-for">WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h4>



India&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/world-news-india-global-trade-coronavirus-pandemic-dd58b5c596f261f8a5655e8d8b5d6984" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">sharply limited</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/fcdffb8f-f86e-4bd9-adec-20256aeb0a07" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">exports</a>&nbsp;of AstraZeneca’s vaccine last month, in an effort to focus on its own supply issues. This could&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-56513371" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">slow deliveries</a>&nbsp;in wealthy countries like the United Kingdom, but it will pose especially serious delays for poorer countries, many of which are&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/pandemics-coronavirus-pandemic-united-nations-98e1561a12c4944478e27c0214f8e447" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reliant on</a>&nbsp;AstraZeneca doses from the COVAX international vaccine subsidy program.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h4>



“The globe needs this vaccine,” Adar Poonawalla, CEO of the Serum Institute of India,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/coronavirus-vaccination-rs-3-000-crores-needed-to-ramp-up-vaccine-production-adar-poonawalla-2407614" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said Tuesday</a>. “We are prioritizing the needs of India at the moment, and we are still short of being able to supply to every Indian that needs it.”



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h4>



Vaccine shortages are not unique to India. Well-heeled places like the United States and Europe have vaccinated their populations far more quickly than low and middle-income countries, partly because they pre-ordered hundreds of millions of doses last year. So far, about 87% of the world’s vaccine supplies have gone to wealthy or upper-middle-income countries, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19-9-april-2021" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">World Health Organization</a>&nbsp;said Friday, while many African countries have&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">secured enough doses</a>&nbsp;to immunize less than 1% of their populations.&nbsp;



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h4>



<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/21/world/asia/india-covid19-vaccines-mumbai.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">India Battles a Second Covid-19 Wave and Vaccine Skepticism (New York Times)</a>



By Joe Walsh, Forbes Staff

INDIA-HEALTH-VIRUS-VACCINES

India’s Covid Outbreak Is Now The World’s Worst As It Lags In Vaccinations

Author: Forbes

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA