qinbafrank
AI/Crypto/TMT Investor, Global Liquidity & Macro, Cycle-Based Investing
Coinbase is becoming CME/ICE-style market infrastructure on USDC stablecoin rails, not just a crypto exchange. The CFTC approved Coinbase Clearing LLC as a registered derivatives clearing organization, putting broker, exchange and clearinghouse for US regulated derivatives under one group. Perpetuals are the natural push, in crypto and potentially US single stocks; when the CFTC approved Coinbase and Kalshi bitcoin perpetuals in May, CME and Cboe shares fell sharply. x.comÂ
Coinbase has fallen far enough to offer real value while quietly building businesses that could help it catch up with Robinhood. In Q2 it won a US national trust bank charter, became the first US-regulated FCM with one of the CFTC's first two perpetual-futures licenses, possibly a path to US stock perps, added stocks, prediction markets, an AI adviser and BTC-backed loans to its main app, and opened sign-ups to mainland Chinese users. Its rebound in recent days bears out the value call. x.comÂ
Coinbase is becoming much more than a crypto exchange, with USDC, derivatives, prediction markets, tokenization and Base. The chart supports it: the stock has built a massive seven-month Stage 1 base and reclaimed its 200-day moving average, and when it gets going it tends to move hard. x.comÂ
Coinbase stands to be a major long-term winner from the CLARITY Act, which would remove the regulatory uncertainty keeping Wall Street institutions out, making the largest compliant US exchange their first stop. A Tillis-Alsobrooks compromise bans pure passive stablecoin interest but allows rewards tied to real usage, so Coinbase can keep paying active users, though stablecoin products, about 20% of 2025 revenue, need adjusting. Markup is set for May, with signing possible by July-August. x.comÂ
Coinbase is a bubbly stock priced as a proxy for crypto trading, yet experienced crypto users leave it for better exchanges. It works for beginners, where it can take advantage of unknowledgeable investors, but more than a decade of crypto use shows Coinbase gets replaced as soon as users find something better. x.comÂ
Coinbase can earn from growing agentic payments through Base transaction fees and yield on dollars backing USDC on Base. Its x402 protocol lets agents pay instantly for web services with stablecoins; cumulative Base x402 transactions rose from 1.5K to 138.5M in five quarters. After a Q4 2025 testing jump, quarterly activity rose from 14M to 18M to 23M in 2026, which looks like accelerating organic use, not just testing. x.comÂ
Coinbase remains a buy-the-dip crypto holding, but now ranks behind Circle. It has lagged amid prolonged CLARITY Act uncertainty, faces revenue risk from the ongoing USDC custody renegotiation with Circle, and miners shifting to AI temper the trading-volume outlook. Circle is the preferred stablecoin exposure because stablecoins are the natural payment rail for AI agents. Basket weights stay unchanged, with a lean toward adding to Circle as the highest-conviction name. x.comÂ
Coinbase is holding the CLARITY Act hostage to protect its stablecoin yield revenue. Its chief legal officer says either rewards are included or there is no CLARITY. Coinbase makes $1.35 billion a year from stablecoin yield, which explains why the most important crypto bill in history is still stuck on one company's revenue model. x.comÂ
Stablecoins and tokenization are clearly heading one way, and risk-reward in Coinbase, Robinhood, SECZ and Circle heavily favors buyers. In ten days, the SEC chair said tokenization rules are moving toward a long-term framework, the SEC allowed on-chain trading of tokenized stocks, and the CFTC sent crypto market rules to White House review. IBM linked to Swift's blockchain for 24/7 tokenized deposits, and ARK is tokenizing its venture fund holding OpenAI and Anthropic. x.comÂ
RLUSD is positioned to become a main liquidity layer for XRP trading, as Tether did for Bitcoin. Planned Coinbase access and institutional backing add to Ripple's trust-bank OCC approval, BNY custody and RLUSD's Moody's A2 as adoption groundwork. If XRP becomes core settlement infrastructure, today's market-cap valuation models would look conservative; $100 is a number, not a ceiling. x.com x.com x.com x.comÂ
Coinbase's likeliest price path is lower as bitcoin finishes the final leg of its bear market. @BobLoukas argues Coinbase is bloated and overvalued, with horrible customer service, crypto retail activity dead, customers having other options and an underwhelming Base chain. x.comÂ
Coinbase participated in the crypto rebound's trading activity. Its spot volume rose about 41-50% month over month to roughly $61-64 billion, overtaking Bybit for third among top-tier spot exchanges. That counters AlphaTAEdgde's claim that the rebound's volume bypassed Coinbase. x.comÂ
