One of the biggest Celebrity Net Worth stories of 2021 was the massive windfall rapper Nas potentially snagged thanks an early investment in Coinbase. According to reports at the time, including our own, Nas was potentially in-line to make over $100 million when Coinbase IPO'd in April 2021.
Investing through his venture capital firm, QueensBridge Ventures, Nas first invested in Coinbase back in 2013, as part of the company's "Series B" funding round. That round raised $25 million at a valuation of $143 million.
QueensBridge typically invests $100 – $500 thousand when it participates in a private funding round. Using that range, one could extrapolate that QB was able to secure 100,000 – 500,000 shares of Coinbase thanks to that investment nearly a decade ago.
When Coinbase went public on April 14, 2021 it ended its first day of trading at $342 a share. At that level, Nas' presumed 100-500k shares were worth between…
$34 and $171 million
An absolutely incredible return on a presumed $100-500k investment. And who knew? Maybe Coinbase was about to be the next Google or Apple and soon Nas would be sitting on a billion dollar crypto stock fortune.
Unfortunately that turned out to not be the case, so far.
Coinbase stock is down 83% from its all-time high, including a 25% drop in just the last 24 hours alone.
So, I really, really, really hop Nas decided to sell at some point in the last year.
(Photo by Romain Maurice/Getty Images for Carbone Beach)
After struggling between May 2021 and October 2021, Coinbase's share price climbed from around $230 back up to its $342 IPO level by mid-November. Unfortunately, as of this writing, that is looking like the absolutely peak before an extremely precipitous fall.
On Monday Coinbase closed at $103 a share. On Tuesday it closed at $73 a share. On Tuesday afternoon, Coinbase released its quarterly earnings report. It was ugly to say the least. Transaction volume is down. Costs are up. Revenue was a miss. The company is implementing a hiring freeze. As I type this article, Coinbase is down 27% compared to yesterday, at $53 per share.
At $53 per share, if Nas still owns a presumed 100-500k Coinbase shares, those shares are worth between…
$5 and $26 million
Still an impressive return, BUT if the $5 million range is correct, that's "only" around $3 million after taxes if he sold today. That's a pretty far cry from the amazing $100 million windfall we wanted so badly to be true a year ago.
