MicroStrategy, a major backer of bitcoin, has said as of this week that its non-employee directors will now get fees for their services in bitcoin, Reuters reported.
MicroStrategy said the fees for directors will be converted from the U.S. dollar to bitcoin via a payment processor at the time of payment, according to Reuters.
Last year, the company spent time steadily gaining more and more bitcoin after its first investment in August when the crypto was soaring in value, Reuters reported. Since then, MicroStrategy has amassed multiple other purchases of the crypto.
Bitcoin has been on another winning streak as of late, soaring past $60,000 over the weekend to another record high. That occurred after two weeks of tighter numbers along with “talk of constrained new supplies against evidence of wider adoption,” according to Reuters. MicroStrategy shares were up almost 4 percent to $738 in premarket trade.
In other news, Coinbase is preparing to go public at a valuation of $100 billion, Bloomberg reported. That amount is more than the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Stock Market combined.
The listing, slated to take place Wednesday (April 14), will see Coinbase cementing its position as the big name in cryptocurrency, with it becoming a symbol of both the promise and risk of digital currency, according to Bloomberg.
Founders Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam own stakes that are estimated by Bloomberg to be worth $15 billion and $2 billion, respectively.
Coinbase has said it expects to report first quarter profits totaling $730 million to $800 million, which is over double what it earned in all of 2020, Bloomberg reported. Revenue in the first three months of 2021 also likely surpassed the $1.3 billion total for last year.
Coinbase now has an opportunity to capture the growing number of institutional and corporate customers who have been buying bitcoin for the long haul, including MicroStrategy and Tesla, according to Bloomberg.
