TOP STORY
🎮️ Discord IPO Rumours are Buzzing Once Again

With Meta surging and Reddit’s IPO on the near horizon, there is one social media powerhouse flying under the radar of public markets - Discord.

Back in 2021, there were rumours about Discord IPOing after turning down Microsoft’s acquisition offer, but analysts are now predicting the real deal to happen sometime this year or next.

🤔 What is Discord?

Founded in 2015 by Jason Citron and Stanislav Vishnevskiy, Discord was created to resolve communication challenges within the gaming community.

Discord’s popularity surged during the COVID-19 lockdown as it expanded beyond gamers, rebranding with the tagline "Your Place to Talk and Hang Out."

In 2021, Jason and Stan turned down a massive $10B acquisition offer from Microsoft remaining independent, so an IPO is a natural next step for the company. Here's what makes Discord unique:

• 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Community and Real-time Interaction: Focuses on real-time voice, video, and text communication, allowing users to create and moderate their own communities with various channels dedicated to specific topics.

• 👍️ Simplicity and Accessibility: Known for its simple user interface (UI) that enhances the gaming experience and now supports diverse groups seeking straightforward communication tools.

• 💬 Free Communication: Provides free text and speech-based communication without the tier restrictions seen in other platforms, including video chats, promoting group conversations that mimic in-person gatherings.

• 📲 Unique Social Media Positioning: Stands out by encouraging direct conversations and community engagement without relying on traditional social media features like news feeds.

Discord has raised over $1 billion in capital and still reportedly has some $700 million in cash, but not all has been smooth sailing.

In January, the company laid off 17% of its employees, or about 170 people, after making cuts last year as well. In a memo to staff at the time, Citron said the company had grown too quickly. He’s now refocusing the business on its gaming roots.

📈 Discord 4x’s Its Revenue

With over 200 million monthly active users, Discord has quadrupled its revenue since 2020, hitting $600 million annually.

Discord’s primary revenue stream comes from its Nitro service subscriptions, priced between $3 to $10 per month. Nitro enhances the user experience by offering features such as the capability to share larger files, stream video in high definition, and use custom emojis in chats.

🎮️ Refocus on Gaming

Apart from the IPO rumours, why are we talking about Discord?

Well, they just launched an interesting new feature that rewards users for playing games online, aiming to drive profitability for the company this year.

The product is called Quests and it lets Discord users try out new games with friends and win stuff. Video game companies will pay Discord to offer rewards tied to their games.

📅 Discord IPO Date

While Discord has not officially announced plans for an IPO, analysts have speculated 2024/2025 might finally be the time Discord pulls the trigger on an IPO. As of now, there is no confirmed IPO date for Discord.

👇 Share your thoughts

Would you invest in Discord? Share your thoughts in this poll on Blossom!

ANNOUNCEMENT
🥳 Celebrating 100,000 members in the Blossom community!

👏 Interrupting the regular Weekly Buzz programming to say thank you again to everyone who made it out to our 100K celebration and to the whole Blossom community for helping us reach this exciting milestone.

We are so grateful to everyone here for helping make Blossom the special place it is today 🥰

All right, back to the news!

CRYPTO
💰 Bitcoin Soars to New Record, Surpassing $70,000 Amid Volatile Week

Bitcoin was all the rage this week as it peaked at $70,170 USD, setting a new all-time high, although short-lived. This comes after falling nearly 74% from 2021 highs during 2022.

It wasn’t too long ago (November) that we were reporting on Bitcoin’s bull run to $44,000 😮

📈 What Caused the Price Jump?

This week’s rally was likely fuelled by both the excitement from the recent introduction of spot Bitcoin ETFs and investor optimism following the February jobs report, which hinted at a potential softening in the labor market.

The speculation has people anticipating the Federal Reserve might consider reducing interest rates later in the year, making investors feel comfortable with new investments.

All this, alongside good old-fashioned FOMO 🤑

📉 What Goes Up Must Come Down

For the second time this week, bitcoin bulls barely had a few seconds to celebrate before prices quickly reversed sharply lower.

After setting the new record on Tuesday, Bitcoin suddenly dropped 10%, taking down other cryptocurrencies and related stocks with it. The bitcoin historical volatility index is at its highest level in almost a year, according to TradingView.

🪙 Coinbase’s Recovery

Thanks to Bitcoin’s rally this week, Coinbase also experienced a recovery after trading in distressed territory the last year, specifically with their issued bonds.

💰️Coinbase Bonds

In 2020 during the pandemic, Coinbase sold convertible bonds amidst a surge in demand for tech and growth stocks. However, the demand plummeted when the underlying stock slumped following the rise in global interest rates.

This week, its cash price soared to 102.625 cents on the dollar, marking its highest point in two years and leading to negative yield territory. It’s now worth nearly doubling its value from the November 2022 low of 52.75 cents.

🤔 Bull or Bear?

All the excitement this week had the Blossom community buzzing too, with the community expressing both bullish and bearish sentiments. Here’s what some users had to say:

💡 Check out more great posts by searching “bitcoin” on Blossom.

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BANKING
💰️ Goldman Forecasts Record-Breaking $1 Trillion in US Stock Buybacks by 2025

Goldman Sachs strategists predict that U.S. stock buybacks will pass the $1 trillion mark in 2025 for the first time in history, driven primarily by the robust performance of mega-cap technology companies.

The bank expects the S&P 500 stock repurchases to grow by 13% to $925 billion, and a further 16% in 2025 to just over $1 trillion, rebounding from last year’s decline.

The catalysts behind this projection include:

• 📈 Improving profits

• 🏦 Favourable lending conditions amid expected interest rate cuts by central banks

• 🇺🇸 Resolution of political uncertainties following the U.S. election

Strategists highlight technology sector revenues, bolstered by strong consumer spending and surging demand for AI-related products, in fuelling this buyback boom.

Goldman Sachs has also recently upgraded its earnings-per-share forecasts for the S&P 500 in 2024 and 2025, reflecting confidence in the sustained profit growth across the largest U.S. technology stocks.

FROM THE BLOSSOM COMMUNITY
🎙️ Top Discussions this Week

🗞️ What else you might’ve missed:

• 👕 GAP (GPS) seeing early signs of a reinvigorated business

• 🚘️ Elon vs OpenAI battle continues

• 🍽️ Costco (COST) earnings beat big on the back of sales of gold bars and silver

• 🤖 Amazon’s (AMZN) generative AI bot Rufus makes online shopping easier

• 📺️ Paramount (PARA) anticipates 'future price increases' amid streaming profitability push