You’re in an underground garage. An informant who goes by the name Deep Throat says, “The truth is, these are not very bright guys and things got out of hand.” Then, using a tone just above a whisper, he advises you to, “Follow the crypto.” Intrigued and a little confused, you ask, “What’s the crypto?” Deep Throat says, “I don’t exactly know and it’s hard to explain anyway. But trust me, follow it.” Some of us are old enough to remember when it was all about the benjamins. Today, it’s all about that base, Coinbase that is. In a watershed moment for digital dough, the leading trading platform for trading crypto went public, IPOing at a cool $100 billion valuation. It’s a little ironic that Coinbase is making a lot of old fashioned dollars for people today.

+ For the sake of comparison, “Nasdaq’s market cap is $26 billion, while ICE, the parent company of the N.Y.S.E., is valued at $67 billion. And by the way, Goldman Sachs’s market value is $111 billion.”