Matt Levine’s Money Stuff: You Have to Get the Right Ticker

Programming note: Money Stuff will be off tomorrow, back on Monday.

Coinbase

Coinbase Global Inc., the big cryptocurrency exchange, <-bsp-bb-link state="{"bbDocId":"QRKK3NT0G1KW","_id":"00000178-d671-d83a-a77f-ff7f77340000","_type":"0000016b-944a-dc2b-ab6b-d57ba1cc0000"}">went public yesterday in a direct listing that ended up valuing it at about $86 billion. Here is an odd fact:

Coinbase Chief Financial Officer Alesia Haas said in an interview Wednesday morning that one of the reasons that the company picked Nasdaq was because the bourse offered the ticker symbol “COIN,” which wasn’t part of the New York Stock Exchange’s pitch.

“Ultimately that they had the ticker COIN, and that was a really great ticker for us to get,” Haas ...