Intel revealed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it has a stake in Coinbase, the cryptocurrency exchange operator that went public in April.
The company said it owns 3,014 Class A shares of Coinbase, with a total value of approximately $763,000. This disclosure only applies to a reporting period that ended on June 30, however, so Intel's stake in Coinbase may have changed by now.
Barron's noted that Intel didn't make a similar disclosure at the end of the first quarter, so either it owned less than a 5 percent stake in Coinbase before the initial public offering, or it purchased the shares after they were made publicly available.
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Coinbase's listing on the Nasdaq stock exchange helped push the price of Bitcoin to an all-time high of roughly $64,000, as crypto enthusiasts and institutional investors celebrated the latest sign that digital assets were becoming more mainstream.
Yahoo Finance data showed Coinbase's share price reaching about $430 the day it went public, but its value dropped shortly after, and it's currently trading at roughly $254. But Intel could still enjoy a return on its investment. Its 3,014 shares are currently worth $767,063; that's $4,063 more than the value cited in its SEC filing.
But that probably isn't the point. Coinbase was among three companies included in that filing, which suggests Intel sees its potential, even if the market isn't hyping up the cryptocurrency exchange as much as it did when Bitcoin was at its peak.
Not that Intel's been shy about its interest in cryptocurrency. The company has been granted patents related to Bitcoin mining, for example, and it joined the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance to work on digital currency with other leading companies.
