Fenwick’s Michael Brown and Ran Ben-Tzur Discuss Coinbase Listing as Pivotal Moment for Crypto Work

Fenwick corporate partners Michael Brown and Ran Ben-Tzur were quoted recently in a Bloomberg Law article about the impact of Coinbase’s milestone direct listing on the cryptocurrency industry and how the Fenwick team helped Coinbase navigate the SEC review process.

Coinbase is the first major crypto company to go public and the first technology company to go public through a direct listing on Nasdaq.

“Coinbase going public is a watershed moment for the crypto industry,” Brown told Bloomberg Law. “It gives a level of credibility to the industry that the SEC has blessed and signed off on the company going public and that the market was so supportive of the stock. We certainly think this paves the way for other companies with a focus on crypto to go public.”

Brown and Ben-Tzur said that from early on, they prepared Coinbase executives to expect a longer process with the SEC. “The laws around crypto are still very gray,” said Ben-Tzur.

The article noted that Fenwick recently turned in one of its best financial years, despite the growing competition in the Silicon Valley legal market.

“Our approach is to work with companies at their earliest stages, into their growth stage, and through a sale or becoming a public company,” Brown said. “We are confident our intense focus on the needs of life sciences and technology companies gives us a competitive advantage to firms who are already here or who may seek to start focusing on those types of companies.”

The full article is available on Bloomberg Law.