Coinbase's trading fees are *outrageous** compared to what we're used to in the world of normal equity/option/future/fx trading. Literally 100x+ what we're used to paying. You have to do absolutely enormous volume before they'll give you anywhere near a sane rate.
I'm not surprised they're printing money.
I'm guessing their fees draw heavy inspiration from price skimming [0] (which is used heavily by AWS), as it allows them to maximize revenue while consumer demand is high in cryptocurrencies.
Very few people outside the US trade on Coinbase because they have monopoly margins.
I know China gets a lot of flack for doing the same thing but maybe they are right? Better to have a local company do well and contribute to the local economy than to send profits overseas and be subject to global corps.
With that in mind, what do you think of the current situation? The US maximize price based optimization (get the best deal) while China maximize population occupancy (everyone must work, nobody is educated = low salary, high industrial out, low output price - one might say to make its population calmer, or simply because for them being busy > getting the best deal).
You then have the largest oldest country in the world trending toward mass slavery reducing prices for the richest most abstract country trending towards 0 productivity in exact opposite.
What is the end game? All americans, getting everything for free losing the ability to build anything while all Chinese work at their own health cost to provide the best prices while being the only ones able to produce anything ?
I think a more balanced local mini supply chain would help both countries and Im glad it s heavily discussed all over the world (decoupling from China, Chinese industries realizing their Chinese employees are now their best clients)
The US still imports a lot of manufactured goods, but that's a consequence of it being competitive in many other service-fields such as software, entertainment, financial services, corporate management, and healthcare technology.
China may assemble the iPhones, but America is designing and coding them. To me that makes it seem like China is the much more co-dependent party in the relationship than the US.
[1]https://www.nam.org/state-manufacturing-data/2019-united-sta...
"To the extent any registered stockholder chooses to sell shares of our Class A common stock covered by this prospectus, we will not receive any proceeds from any such sales of our Class A common stock."
This is a direct listing, so I think its primarily a liquidity event for investors and employees.