Coinbase Global Inc collected an $85 billion valuation in its stock market debut on Wednesday, a watershed moment for an industry that started a decade ago as an experiment in digital money. Shares of Coinbase, the first major bitcoin-focused company to test the US public market, opened at $381 on the Nasdaq Global Select Market. They rose as high as $429 in the first few minutes of trading and ended the session at $328.28. Coinbase went public through a direct listing under the ticker symbol COIN. The exchange had set a reference price of $250 on Tuesday, but no trades were made at that price. While Coinbase was last valued at roughly $8 billion in a 2018 fundraising round, some analysts had projected its valuation could top $100 billion based on private market trading. Founded by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam in 2012, Coinbase has grown into one of the most significant companies in the crypto market.