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Coinbase, initially known as a platform for buying initial Bitcoin, has evolved significantly, transforming into a central infrastructure for digital finance. Once a simple exchange, it is now an S&P 500-listed company offering the purchase of Apple, Tesla, or Google shares alongside cryptocurrencies within the same interface. This video explores how Coinbase has become a systemic player, building a comprehensive ecosystem from blockchain networks to custody, stablecoins, and distribution, catering to both individuals and institutions. The core question posed is whether Coinbase is discreetly constructing a new central actor in global finance by capturing every layer of the market, including custody, stablecoins, L2 solutions, ETFs, and derivative products. The journey began in 2012 when Brian Armstrong, a former Airbnb engineer, published a manifesto on Hacker News, highlighting the difficulty of buying Bitcoin at the time and proposing a simple, secure tool for the general public—a "PayPal for Bitcoin." This idea led to the birth of Coinbase, incubated at Y Combinator. Today, Coinbase is a financial giant with a market capitalization exceeding $67 billion, over $6.5 billion in revenue in 2024, and more than $2.5 billion in net profits. Crucially, it secures over $500 billion in assets on its platform, with approximately $300 billion in institutional custody. This scale positions it as a full-fledged financial infrastructure, a fact recognized by Wall Street. Coinbase entered the Nasdaq in April 2021 with a spectacular IPO, and by May 2025, it had joined the S&P 500, signifying institutional validation. Coinbase's distinctive strategy, unlike other exchanges that prioritized speed or opacity, has been an early commitment to legal compliance—regulation first, then growth. In 2025, the SEC officially dropped its proceedings against the platform, marking a major turning point. This suggests that Coinbase grew not despite, but potentially because of, American regulation. Beyond its San Francisco offices, Coinbase’s influence extends widely. In 2024, during the US elections, Coinbase spent nearly $30 million on lobbying and political actions, becoming a highly active player in the crypto sector's regulatory landscape. Concurrently, its "Stand with Crypto" campaign now boasts over 2 million members advocating for favorable crypto regulation. The group's industrial expansion is also noteworthy. In 2025, Coinbase made 10 acquisitions, a company record. These included Derry Bit, the world's largest crypto derivatives platform, acquired for approximately $2.9 billion, as well as L'quy and Echo, enabling Coinbase to control the entire value chain from token launch to listing, financing, builder support, and secondary market trading. Coinbase is evolving into a comprehensive, vertical machine that oversees the entire lifecycle of a crypto project. Furthermore, through Coinbase Ventures, the group has invested in over 600 projects across major blockchains, hosting alumni events and launching a specific fund for builders developing on Base, its proprietary blockchain. Coinbase is no longer just operating a platform; it finances, absorbs, and structures the ecosystem. A critical turning point for Coinbase has been its role in custody. Since the explosion of Bitcoin ETFs in early 2024, Coinbase has become the official custodian for American institutions. By June 2025, approximately 81% of US crypto ETF assets, around $113 billion, were held by Coinbase. In total, the company now secures nearly 12% of the global crypto market's total capitalization—a colossal proportion that places it at the center of the ecosystem, even for users who do not directly interact with it. This statistic alone underscores Coinbase's status as a systemic infrastructure that not only intermediates but also conserves, arbitrates, structures, and directly influences flows, projects, and dominant narratives within the ecosystem. Coinbase's ambition extends to building its own execution layer. In 2023, it launched Base, a blockchain designed for mass adoption, akin to a "Binance Smartchain made in USA" but backed by Wall Street. Within two years, Base emerged as the market's leading Layer 2 solution. Built on Optimism's OP Stack, Base functions as a faster, cheaper, yet secure, overlay to Ethereum. By 2026, it had become a dominant Web3 infrastructure. Its growth has been remarkable: in 2025, Base generated $75 million in revenue, capturing 62% of total Layer 2 revenues. Its Total Value Locked (TVL) in DeFi protocols surpassed $4.6 billion, representing 46% of the entire Layer 2 market, significantly ahead of Arbitrum. Usage statistics are equally impressive, with nearly 2 million weekly active addresses and a record 14 million in June 2025. Over 3.7 billion transactions were processed on the network in 2025, accounting for over 60% of all combined L2 transactions. This dominance is not solely due to technology; it's because Base is directly integrated into the Coinbase ecosystem, which has over 9.3 million monthly active users as of Q3 2025. This massive user base provides a seamless gateway, with 90% of Morphex loans on Base going through Coinbase, and USDC recording over 83,000 active users on decentralized exchanges in November. Base's strategy is to bring Web2 masses to the crypto chain without friction, jargon, or wallet configuration. This strategy is further extended by Base App, a simplified, public version of its wallet launched in July 2025, which has already attracted nearly 150,000 accounts. The goal is clear: to make Base the default entry point to Web3, with users feeling like they haven't left Coinbase. In terms of governance, Base reached "stage one decentralization" in 2025, introducing open fraud proof mechanisms and an independent security council. While Coinbase retains a structuring role, the power of Base makes the question of full decentralization almost secondary. For 2026, the objective is to achieve $10 billion in TVL and establish itself as a real-time Web3 infrastructure for AI applications and instant microtransactions. The possibility of a native token for Base is also being considered. While not officially confirmed, discussions have evolved, with Base creator Jessie Pock suggesting a token could emerge not as a speculative tool but to align ecosystem incentives and strengthen network governance. An airdrop to network users seems highly probable, especially as other players like Kraken develop their own Layer 2 solutions. With Base, Coinbase is no longer just a crypto gateway; it's becoming the locus of on-chain activity—a playground, an execution layer, and a massive integration machine. While Base might be one of the more centralized tools in a market that values decentralization, it is also one of the most effective. Understanding Coinbase also requires acknowledging the USDC stablecoin. USDC, currently the second-largest stablecoin, represents a deeply integrated strategic relationship between Coinbase and Circle. After initially co-managing USDC via the Center consortium, Coinbase took a direct stake in Circle in 2023, with Circle solely managing stablecoin issuance. A new commercial agreement grants Coinbase a significant share of the revenue generated from USDC reserves, particularly interest on US Treasury bonds. These revenues are substantial, with Coinbase reporting over $350 million from stablecoins in Q3 2025 alone. USDC has become a highly profitable pillar of Coinbase's economic model, generating industrial-scale passive income. On Base, USDC is the reference currency, powering most DeFi protocols, dominating exchange volumes, and becoming the default currency for applications on Coinbase's L2. Coinbase has successfully imposed its own currency on its own network. This strategy works because USDC is designed to be a "clean, regulated, auditable" stablecoin for institutions, and Coinbase is the platform that distributes, integrates, and institutionalizes it. It's more than a stablecoin; it's a lever of monetary power integrated into the Coinbase ecosystem. Coinbase’s vision, as articulated by Brian Armstrong, extends far beyond its current offerings. It aims to become the world's most comprehensive financial platform—an "Everything Exchange" capable of managing all assets, uses, and audiences within a single interface. This vision is taking shape. Coinbase app users can now buy and sell traditional stocks and ETFs alongside their crypto. This functionality, currently limited to eligible US residents, will gradually expand. Notably, stock trading is available 24/5, bypassing traditional stock market hours. Users can trade millions of tokens at launch via Solana and Base ecosystem integrations, participate in primary token sales directly, and will soon invest in tokenized stocks that are continuously tradable, usable in DeFi, and entirely on-chain. Access to prediction markets through a partnership with Kalchi will also allow betting on elections or economic/sporting events, all within one app designed for individuals, businesses, traders, and developers. This represents a fusion of Robinhood, Binance, PayPal, and Bloomberg. Coinbase also launched Base App, an "Everything app on-chain" that blends finance, content, social networking, and monetization. Users can follow traders, copy actions, and earn tokens by posting, interacting, and scrolling. This expands their vision: to make the infrastructure a universe where everything is liquid, connected, and potentially monetizable. This ambition to do everything is also an ambition to own everything, which brings us back to USDC. Brian Armstrong has clearly stated that stablecoins must pay interest to remain competitive, and Coinbase is moving in this direction, with USDC yields soon to be generalized across all products, aiming to replace traditional savings accounts. Coinbase is rapidly deploying a platform that connects crypto, traditional finance, AI, content, and payments. Despite the seemingly ambitious scope, Coinbase is building a "soft monopoly"—a modular machine that integrates with every layer of the market, from custody to distribution, product to protocol, and individual to institution. Coinbase is no longer just selling crypto; it is absorbing finance. However, even a well-constructed empire has vulnerabilities. Coinbase's concentration of over 80% of US crypto ETF custody represents a major single point of failure that could destabilize the ecosystem in case of an incident. Its reliance on the American political and regulatory framework is another fragility; a change in administration, an ideological conflict, or misdirected fiscal pressure could slow down the entire operation. Furthermore, by focusing heavily on total compliance, the company risks stifling innovation in the name of respectability, although it has managed to balance these aspects so far. External risks also exist, as demonstrated by an extortion attempt in May 2025 following an internal data leak, with estimated damages between $180 million and $400 million. When an entity becomes an infrastructure, its failures become systemic. For those who align with Brian Armstrong's vision, Coinbase stock offers a straightforward and credible way to gain exposure to the crypto sector. It is publicly traded, regulated, liquid, and backed by a profitable company. While it's not a hedge if you already own cryptocurrencies, as its business directly depends on the sector, it represents a bet on the cycle. Coinbase is more than just a proxy for Bitcoin's price; it's a lever on four key dynamics: volatility and volumes, stablecoin income via USDC, on-chain adoption via Base, and the growth of crypto ETFs, for which Coinbase is the primary custodian. As such, Coinbase can be considered a "pickaxe seller's stock" and may have a place in a diversified equity portfolio.