Coinbase's "Everything" Vision Collides With Weak Q2
Olivia Capozzalo & Camila Russo
August 01, 2025
Happy Friday, Defiers!
Today’s big story:
- Coinbase outlined plans to become an “everything exchange,” but a disappointing Q2 rained on the bullish vision
In other news:
- The acceleration of crypto public treasury companies could “become structurally fragile,” per a new Galaxy Digital report
- After the SEC revealed Project Crypto, Coinbase said it wants to bring “all assets on-chain” for its U.S. users
- Grayscale debuts its latest crypto trust — and it’s far below the top-20 crypto assets
- Visa adds more stablecoins and protocols to its settlement network
- A U.S. court overturns the 2023 insider trading conviction of an OpenSea exec
- As the Ethereum community celebrates 10 years since the network’s launch, experts weigh in on what’s ahead [FEATURE]
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- Shinkai Protocol empowers users with open source agentic system [SPONSORED]
Read more below! But first, please give our sponsors some love; they make this newsletter possible.
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The Road to 5000 TPS: Scaling Stellar in 2025
In 2025, one of the Stellar Development Foundation’s (SDF) primary goals is to increase Stellar Core’s theoretical throughput to 5000 transactions per second (TPS). As adoption of Soroban — the Stellar smart contracts platform — accelerates and new use cases emerge, scalability is essential to ensuring that Stellar remains fast, affordable, and developer-friendly.
This post provides a high-level overview of our comprehensive scalability efforts, categorized into five key themes. Consider this a brief introduction to our major projects; we will delve deeper into each optimization area in upcoming posts.
Read more: The Road to 5000 TPS: Scaling Stellar in 2025
We’re back! Here’s what you need to know in web3 today
📈 Markets in the last 24 hrs
| TICKER | VALUE | 24H | |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Bitcoin | $115,092 | -2.78 % |
 | Ethereum | $3,628.92 | -4.58 % |
 | XRP | $2.97 | -4.51 % |
 | BNB | $766.77 | -3.63 % |
 | Solana | $166.65 | -5.95 % |
 MessariPortals | MINDSHARE Rank | MINDSHARE % Change (7d) |
|---|---|---|
 | MINDSHARE Rank | MINDSHARE % Change (7d) |
 |  | 39.60% |
 | | 14.51% |
 | | 65.39% |
| Powered by Messari Portals | ||
Today’s Big Story
Coinbase’s “Everything Exchange” Vision Collides With a Not-As-Bullish Q2
The week Brian Armstrong pitched Coinbase as the one-stop shop for all assets—stocks, perps, prediction markets, even Chase reward points—the market reminded him that shiny roadmaps don’t pay the bills just yet.
Bullish announcements
- Tokenized-stocks reveal. Vice-president Max Branzburg told CNBC the firm will “bring all assets on-chain” and launch U.S. trading of tokenized equities, derivatives and prediction markets “in the coming months.” The move positions Coinbase against Robinhood and Kraken in the race to wrap Wall Street inside ERC-20s.
- Perpetual futures go live. A July 21 debut of Coinbase Perpetuals plants a regulated CEX flag in a market long dominated by offshore venues and Hyperliquid’s DeFi rails.
- JPMorgan partnership. Two days later, Chase promised its 80 million customers a direct bank-to-wallet link, the option to fund trades with credit cards, and the ability to convert Ultimate Rewards into USDC—all routed through Coinbase.
The cold shower
Hours after the press blitz, Q2 earnings landed. Transaction revenue slipped again to $764 million, while adjusted net income cratered 89% to $33 million. Retail volumes were “muted,” management said, even as Bitcoin sat near ATHs. Shares fell 7% in after-hours trading.
Subscription and services lines—staking, custody, stablecoin interest now a record $332 million—kept the quarter out of the red, but they can’t mask the core problem: fewer trades, lower take. Tokenization may expand addressable markets, yet it won’t immediately close the gap between user excitement and fee capture.
What tokenization really fixes (and what it doesn’t)
Revenue mix. Wrapping stocks in tokens could kick-start volumes at higher take-rates than commoditised BTC/ETH trades, if regulators accept smart-contract settlement.
Cross-sell flywheel. Chase’s rewards-to-USDC bridge is a stealth on-ramp to Coinbase Commerce, nudging 80M households toward on-chain payments and reinforcing the firm’s fastest-growing revenue line.
Liquidity moat. Perpetuals and prediction markets expand the order book, but liquidity will fragment unless Coinbase links order flow across venues or mirrors order books on-chain.
Yet none of these levers matter unless retail comes back. Tokenized Apple shares and NBA finals prediction markets still need traders—and a reason to choose Coinbase over Robinhood, Binance, or a fee-free DEX.
Regulatory tailwinds and a product super-cycle put Coinbase in pole position to become the coveted “everything app” of on-chain finance. That ambition is now priced into the stock, but the exchange still needs to deliver on the execution.
This post was first published in our RWA and stablecoins-focused weekly newsletter, Real World. Subscribe to get next week’s!
🎬WATCH
Ethereum Turns 10: Joe Lubin on Revolutionizing the Global Economy
In the latest episode of The Defiant Podcast, as Ethereum celebrated its 10th anniversary, Cami sat down with Joe Lubin, Ethereum co-founder and CEO of Consensys, for an exclusive deep dive into the past, present, and future of the Ethereum ecosystem.
From the concept of “digital oil” to Ethereum's role as the foundation of a decentralized global economy, Joe shares his vision for the next decade of blockchain innovation. Tune in to hear his thoughts on staking strategies, the rise of DeFi, and why Ethereum is poised to become the substrate for the world's financial system.
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Rand Hindi, CEO and co-founder of Zama, explores the importance of confidentiality in blockchain technology. Learn how Zama's innovative protocol uses fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) to enable secure, confidential transactions on public blockchains—without altering existing protocols.
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Top News in the Past 24 Hours
- Galaxy Digital Warns Crypto Treasury Firms Create ‘Structurally Fragile’ Market The research arm of Mike Novogratz's Galaxy Digital is cautioning that the fast rise of crypto treasury companies could potentially make the market “structurally fragile,” comparing it to the 1920s investment trust boom.
- Coinbase Unveils ‘Everything Exchange’ Bringing Tokenized Stocks to US Users The largest U.S. crypto exchange, Coinbase, told media yesterday that the firm will begin offering tokenized stocks, derivatives, prediction markets and early-stage token sales to U.S. customers in the coming months, aiming to create — like many of its competitors globally — a one-stop shop for everything crypto.
- Grayscale Launches Story Trust, Adding Tokenized IP to Its Lineup of Crypto Investment Products Crypto asset manager Grayscale has launched a new investment trust for IP, the native token of the Story network. IP is currently the 68th-largest crypto by market cap, notably smaller than the other cryptocurrencies that Grayscale has created dedicated funds for, namely BTC, ETH, SOL, LTC, and LINK.
- Visa Adds Support for PYUSD and USDG, Expands Settlement to Stellar and AvalancheVisa plans to add two new U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins — Global Dollar (USDG) and PayPal USD (PYUSD) — through a partnership with Paxos. The payments giant is also integrating Circle’s euro-pegged EURC stablecoin and extending blockchain support to the Stellar and Avalanche networks.
- Court Overturns Fraud Conviction of OpenSea’s Nate Chastain Three years after OpenSea’s former head of product, Nathaniel Chastain, was arrested by the FBI on insider trading charges, a U.S. court has overturned his conviction. The news comes as OpenSea gears up for its long-awaited token launch, which still does not have a set date.
- FEATURE: Ethereum Turns 10 — Experts Say ETH Could Hit $40,000 in Next Decade as Network Matures Ethereum officially turned 10 on Wednesday, marking a decade since its mainnet launch on July 30, 2015. Although its native token, Ether (ETH), has struggled to maintain momentum over the past five years, experts say its long-term outlook is improving.
Trending on The Defiant
- SEC Launches ‘Project Crypto’ to Bring All Markets On-Chain
- Crypto Markets Stall as Trump’s Crypto Policy Report Fails to Spark Momentum
- CryptoPunks Floor Price Hits 3-Year High of $208,000
- Ripple CTO Admits ‘Even Ripple Can’t Use XRPL DEX’ as XRP Faces Longtime Fan’s Scrutiny
- Hyperliquid to Refund Users Affected by Platform Outage
- Crypto Markets Navigate Resistance Zones with ETF Flows in Flux
That’s it for today — if you enjoyed this newsletter, tell your friends! https://thedefiant.io/subscribe
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