Coinbase has completed more than 40 high-profile mergers and acquisitions, investing billions of dollars in promising cryptocurrency startups and unicorns. With an estimated value of $100 billion, it’s hard to believe that a company like Coinbase needs to acquire new businesses to grow. But with $10 billion in cash on hand, the US’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange continues to seek out the next big opportunity in the sector. Coinbase has not been shy about writing checks in 2025. The exchange reportedly paid $2.9 billion in a cash-and-stock acquisition of cryptocurrency options trading platform Deribit in August. Then came its headline-grabbing $375 million acquisition of onchain capital raising platform Echo in October. Crypto Twitter was buzzing over the news, thanks to some genius marketeering involving Echo’s founder and influencer Cobie, who received $25 million from Coinbase as part of the deal to relaunch his long-dormant UpOnly podcast. Read more
Citi partners with Coinbase to pilot stablecoin payments as the bank forecasts a $4 trillion market by 2030, signaling Wall Street’s growing crypto embrace. Citigroup could become one of Wall Street’s first major banks to offer stablecoin payment services, marking a potential milestone in the broader adoption of tokenized dollars following the passage of the GENIUS Act earlier this year. According to Bloomberg, Citi has partnered with crypto exchange Coinbase to expand its digital asset capabilities, initially focusing on making it easier for clients to move funds between fiat and crypto. Debopama Sen, Citi’s head of payments, said the bank’s clients are increasingly seeking programmability, conditional payments and greater speed and efficiency, alongside round-the-cock payment access. Read more
Coinbase’s x402 protocol, which enables AI agents to transact autonomously over the internet, has seen a 10,000% rise in transaction activity over a month. An online payments protocol introduced by Coinbase in May that enables AI agents to transact in stablecoins over the internet has seen more than a 10,000% increase in transaction activity over a last month. At the time, Coinbase said x402 fixes “the internet’s first mistake” by resurrecting the Internet Communication Protocol’s Hypertext Transfer Protocol 402 — or HTTP 402 — to create a seamless payment system native to the internet. It lets AI — and humans — pay directly while using a website or app: they request something, receive a HTTP 402 “Payment Required” prompt, and then send a signed stablecoin payment, which x402 then verifies automatically. No credit cards required. Read more
JPMorgan sees Coinbase unlocking billions through its Base layer-2 network and USDC rewards overhaul, lifting its price target and fueling a sharp stock rally. Shares of Coinbase Global Inc. (COIN) rallied sharply on Friday after JPMorgan Chase upgraded the cryptocurrency exchange, highlighting new monetization opportunities tied to its Base network and USDC payout strategy. The bank’s analysts lifted their rating to “Overweight” from “Neutral” and raised their price target to $404 per share, implying roughly 15% upside from current levels. JPMorgan said Coinbase is “leaning into” its Base layer-2 blockchain and exploring ways to better capture value from the platform’s growth. Read more
JPMorgan sees Coinbase unlocking billions through its Base layer-2 network and USDC rewards overhaul, lifting its price target and fueling a sharp stock rally. Shares of Coinbase Global Inc. (COIN) rallied sharply on Friday after JPMorgan Chase upgraded the cryptocurrency exchange, highlighting new monetization opportunities tied to its Base network and USDC payout strategy. The bank’s analysts lifted their rating to “Overweight” from “Neutral” and raised their price target to $404 per share, implying roughly 15% upside from current levels. JPMorgan said Coinbase is “leaning into” its Base layer-2 blockchain and exploring ways to better capture value from the platform’s growth. Read more
JPMorgan sees Coinbase unlocking billions through its Base layer-2 network and USDC rewards overhaul, lifting its price target and fueling a sharp stock rally. Shares of Coinbase Global Inc. (COIN) rallied sharply on Friday after JPMorgan Chase upgraded the cryptocurrency exchange, highlighting new monetization opportunities tied to its Base network and USDC payout strategy. The bank’s analysts lifted their rating to “Overweight” from “Neutral” and raised their price target to $404 per share, implying roughly 15% upside from current levels. JPMorgan said Coinbase is “leaning into” its Base layer-2 blockchain and exploring ways to better capture value from the platform’s growth. Read more
The remaining “10%” of issues center mainly on DeFi, which Brian Armstrong says lawmakers are addressing carefully to preserve innovation. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong says he’s optimistic that US senators are moving closer to advancing key cryptocurrency market structure legislation by Thanksgiving, suggesting that there’s now far more agreement on both sides of the aisle than there are differences. “Even though the government is shut down, the Senate is working hard on getting market structure legislation passed for crypto,” Armstrong said in a video posted on X. According to Armstrong, roughly 90% of the legislative framework has already been agreed upon, with the remaining 10% focused on issues like decentralized finance (DeFi). He added that policymakers are looking for ways to protect innovation while ensuring that “centralized intermediaries, like Coinbase, should be regulated — not the protocols.” Read more
Echo, a crowdfunding platform whose first fundraising project was Ethena, has been acquired by Coinbase after operating for less than two years. Major US cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has acquired Echo, a platform that allows communities to raise capital targeting early-stage projects and startups. Coinbase struck a $375 million deal to acquire Echo, a crowdfunding platform founded by crypto trader Jordan Fish, known in the community as Cobie, the company announced on Tuesday. The acquisition came the day after Coinbase sent $25 million in USDC (USDC) to Cobie’s wallet to acquire and burn a non-fungible token (NFT) and revive his UpOnly podcast. Read more
This marks the second major Amazon AWS outage since April, when “connectivity issues” created usability problems for at least eight large crypto exchanges. Update Oct. 20, 1:15 p.m. UTC: This article has been updated to include comments from Dr. Max Li, founder and CEO of OORT. Coinbase and Robinhood were among several major platforms distressed by an Amazon Web Services (AWS) data center outage on Monday, underscoring the risks of relying on centralized cloud providers for critical financial infrastructure. Coinbase, the third-largest centralized cryptocurrency exchange (CEX) by trading volume, was hit by an AWS data center outage, which reported “increased error rates and latencies” for multiple AWS Services in the Northern Virginia region. Read more
Coinbase added a Binance token to a list of planned additions to the exchange amid an online discourse that included one of its own employees and other industry leaders. Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has added Binance’s BNB token to its roadmap for listings amid a series of online exchanges discussing the process. On Tuesday, Limitless Labs CEO CJ Hetherington posted to X, contrasting what he claimed were the requirements for a token to be listed on Binance rather than Coinbase. According to the CEO, Binance’s requirements included a security deposit of 2 million BNB (BNB) for a spot listing, while Coinbase’s were limited to “build[ing] something meaningful on Base.” The online exchange sparked debate, which only seemed to intensify when Coinbase’s head of Base, Jesse Pollak, chimed in to say “it should cost 0% to be listed on an exchange.” Read more