10 COIN Wins

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1. 🇺🇸 Senate Advances GENIUS Stablecoin Bill. The Senate moved the major piece of crypto legislation through to another round of debate.
2. 🇦🇷 Milei Looks to Squash Investigation into LIBRA Scandal. Days after a judge ruled that the elected leader must disclose his bank accounts, Milei moved to shut down the unit tasked with investigating the memecoin incident.
3. 🗿 Blackstone Discloses $1M Stake in BlackRock's IBIT. The mega asset manager is dipping its toes into digital assets.

	Crypto $3.34T	↗ 0.5%	↘ 1.5%
	BTC $106,383	↗ 1.1%	↗ 2.0%
	ETH $2,502	↘ 0.3%	↘ 7.3%

Coinbase has been quietly laying the groundwork for its most transformative year yet as a public company.

From its landmark S&P 500 index inclusion to an ambitious derivatives expansion and cutting-edge privacy initiatives, Coinbase appears intent on firmly establishing itself at the intersection of traditional finance and decentralized innovation.

While it hasn't been up-only for the company, which continues to deal with blowback from a substantial data breach, COIN continues to rise, up over 50% this past month.

In this article, we break down 10 key catalysts set to shape COIN’s trajectory in 2025. 👇

1️⃣ S&P 500 Inclusion

The S&P 500 index is a broad-market benchmark that programmatically weights ~500 of the largest publicly traded U.S. companies by market capitalization. It is the basis for trillions of dollars in passive and active investment strategies.

On May 19, Coinbase became the first crypto stock to be included in the index; its addition was estimated to have triggered $15B in inflows for the stock and means that roughly 0.11% of every dollar flowing into S&P 500-linked portfolios is now allocated to the crypto exchange.

While this amount might seem modest, the sheer scale of the index translates that fraction into multi-million dollar buys every month as investors allocate to the passive strategy, a valuable support mechanism for COIN’s price and liquidity that signals crypto’s deepening ties with traditional finance.

2️⃣ Deribit Acquisition

Coinbase recently announced it will acquire Deribit – the undisputed global leader in crypto options – for $2.9B ($700M cash and 11M shares of COIN). The acquisition marks the largest deal that the crypto industry has ever seen.

This deal will enable Coinbase to offer options alongside existing spot, futures, and perpetuals offerings to international and advanced traders, transforming the exchange into a full-service crypto powerhouse with all of the tools savvy traders need to express their views on digital asset and commodities markets.

Options allow traders to transact larger notional dollar volumes per dollar of capital thanks to their built-in leverage. The introduction of these instruments will not only allow Coinbase to earn more fees, it also stands to build a synergistic relationship that boosts overall platform trading volumes.

3️⃣ 24/7 Futures Markets

TradFi markets may close on the weekends, but crypto never sleeps. To align with this reality and meet the demands of traders in an always-on market, Coinbase recently became the first CFTC-registered exchange to offer 24/7 access to regulated BTC and ETH futures markets.

By offering around-the-clock access to leveraged futures contracts, Coinbase ensures that speculators and market makers have the ability to react at any moment, and with longer trading days meaning more transactions can be made, the exchange stands to experience increasing transaction volumes.

4️⃣ Riot Games Partnership

Riot Games is the multi-billion dollar studio behind popular titles such as League of Legends and Valorant, and earlier this month, the firm announced that it would venture into the world of digital assets with a Coinbase partnership.

As the “exclusive cryptocurrency exchange and official blockchain technology partner” of Valorant and League of Legends Esports global events, Coinbase will provide viewers with live analysis of in-match currency movement and provide emote/icon “drops” to event viewers that can be redeemed.

While this partnership is starting off small, it could simply be the starting point for a multi-year relationship that sees Riot Games bringing in-game asset ownership to the blockchain with the help of Coinbase, a relationship that could be lucrative for both parties.

5️⃣ Bitcoin Yield Fund

Ethena became a blue chip crypto protocol this market cycle for gobbling up billions of dollars of deposits into its stablecoin products, which hold spot crypto assets and short perpetual futures to synthesize dollar exposure and generate yields.

Hoping to get in on the action, Coinbase Asset Management unveiled its “Bitcoin Yield Fund” in late April, which seeks to generate 4-8% bitcoin returns by utilizing Ethena-style basis trade strategies.

Numerous Ethena alternatives already exist, but few have existing clients. The Coinbase Bitcoin Yield Fund offers no-hassle returns to its onboarded institutional investors and could better pricing in Coinbase futures/perpetuals markets for buyers by matching them with a programmatic seller.

6️⃣ Verified Pools

Launched on March 18, Coinbase “Verified Pools” leverage the exchange’s proprietary KYC verification system (Coinbase Verifications) to mesh identity verification with decentralized exchanges through a Uniswap V4 hook.

This style of pool could be useful (if not required) for real-world asset swaps and highlights the usefulness of Coinbase’s existing KYC database in facilitating onchain security transactions in an era where the SEC moves to provide digital asset clarity.

7️⃣ Custody Meets Onchain

Coinbase Custody safeguards 12% of the total crypto market cap and serves as the registered custodian for the vast majority of spot crypto ETFs trading on U.S. exchanges, including the dominant BTC and ETH products offered by Grayscale and BlackRock.

Supporting over 40 blockchains across hundreds of assets, Coinbase Custody seamlessly integrates custodial staking and enables DeFi participation via its Prime Onchain Wallet, two unique features that set it apart from more traditional custodial choices now that U.S. banks have received approval to offer such services.

As institutional interest in digital asset ownership expands, Coinbase is well-situated to capitalize on increasing deposits into its fee-generating custody services.

8️⃣ Enhanced Subscription Benefits

Coinbase has been keen on expanding its durable “services and subscription” revenue segment for years, and one major way it earns in this category is through Coinbase One, a retail-focused crypto subscription that offers lower trading fees, higher USDC rewards, and more.

In February, Coinbase enhanced One with an assortment of onchain benefits for subscribers, including $10 in gas on Base per month, a free 5+ digit Basename claim, and reduced fees/token benefits from partner protocols.

9️⃣ American Perpetuals, Soon

Coinbase International already offers a range of crypto-linked perpetual futures to eligible non-U.S. users, and while these instruments have not yet received approval from the CFTC, the exchange has promised this is the next type of derivative they hope to offer to Americans.

Perpetual futures contracts have no expiration date, and existing Coinbase International traders can receive up to 20x leverage. Should these retail-desired instruments be approved by the CFTC for American users, Coinbase could become a leading venue for leverage trading on digital assets and commodities.

🔟 Privacy First

Crypto needs privacy, and on March 6, Coinbase announced that it had hired the team behind Iron Fish – a zero-knowledge privacy layer that gives optional privacy to assets on transparent chains – to helm a new privacy team within Base and accelerate the network’s privacy strategy by developing privacy-preserving primitives.

While this partnership remains in its nascent stages, it signals that Coinbase is seeking to establish Base as a leader in private blockchain solutions that benefit developers, users, and the crypto industry.

Should an increasing number of institutions and private individuals migrate onchain, they’ll need to conduct sensitive financial transactions not intended for the public eye; Base could capture these users by becoming a leader in private blockchain solutions.

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