Category: Coinbase

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Coinbase Sinks to Record All-Time Low Amid $430 Million Loss

Nasdaq-listed Coinbase has endured a torrid time of late. Most recently, its share price tanked over 20 percent following a distinct shift in tone away from risk-on assets, sinking the preeminent exchange’s share price to a record all-time low and surpassing the unenviable milestone it reached just two weeks ago:

Disappointing Earnings

The sharp downward move was precipitated by Coinbase’s recently released earnings for Q1 2022, and unfortunately for shareholders it wasn’t good news.

The company revealed that despite generating over US$1.17 billion in revenue, it remained significantly shy of the US$2.5 billion it took in Q4 2021. In addition, the business reported quarterly losses of US$430 million, and even analysts were left scratching their heads since consensus opinion was that Coinbase would, at the very least, break even.

Perhaps most concerning is the fact that active monthly users dropped from 11.2 million to 9.2 million over the past quarter, reflecting in part the dour mood in crypto markets.

The market responded predictably to the weak results as Coinbase shares plummeted by more than 20 percent, touching as low as US$62. At the time of publication it had somewhat recovered, trading at US$78, albeit still 79 percent lower than its IPO. Youthful on-chain wizard Will Clemente saw the funny side of it all:

Upside is Lipstick on a Pig

Despite the disappointing results, Coinbase sought to temper the bad news with an upbeat tone, saying:

The first quarter of 2022 continued a trend of both lower crypto asset prices and volatility that began in late 2021. These market conditions directly impacted our Q1 results. [However], we entered these market conditions with foresight and preparation, and remain as excited as ever about the future of crypto #wagmi.

Coinbase shareholder letter

Anil Gupta, Coinbase’s VP of Investor Relations, noted that the company was well positioned to weather current conditions, saying: “We don’t have infinite runway, but we have plenty of gas in the tank.”

The company is no doubt on the back foot, amid ongoing criticism of its custody arrangements as well as the unsuccessful launch of an NFT marketplace. With the market in turmoil, Coinbase will need something special to turn the ship around, as investors are unlikely to tolerate such dramatic and prolonged declines since inception.

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Coinbase Ethereum NFTs

Coinbase COIN Hits All-Time Low, Down 63% Since IPO

Coinbase stock has hit an all-time low just two days after it launched its Ethereum NFT marketplace. Since the launch, shares are down more than 15 percent and the price has dropped more than 47 percent since January.

Coinbase Plummets Despite New Developments

Coinbase shares on the Nasdaq slid down to US$131.14 hours after trading on April 22. The crypto exchange announced its plans to enter the NFT space in October last year, with over 1.5 million people signing up for the waitlist, and the beta version of the marketplace kicked off on April 20.

The launch, which had been hyped for over a year, failed to reverse Coinbase’s months-long slump, with the price almost halving since January.

Further Integration Planned Despite Lukewarm Reception

While everybody can access the website at the moment, with the beta launch only a select few clients can buy and sell Ethereum-based NFTs with payments in Ether. Coinbase plans to integrate other blockchains in the future along with unique features that would allow users to engage more. For now, though, it seems that Coinbase’s NFT marketplace has failed to generate much excitement despite entering a burgeoning space populated by other marketplaces such as OpenSea, Rarible, SuperRare and LooksRare.

What differentiates Coinbase’s marketplace from those of its competitors is that it emphasises communal experience, encouraging NFT artists and buyers to interact and connect with social features, much like Instagram. The platform, which has aggregated any NFTs for sale on the Ethereum blockchain across marketplaces, is still limited in terms of access and is slowly opening to its millions-long waitlist.

The downturn in prices comes at a bad time for Coinbase. The launch of its marketplace was initially planned for late 2021 and it has entered the red-hot NFT space just as it seems to be cooling down. Along with the price slump, Coinbase is also being dragged into a class action lawsuit for selling 79 “unregistered securities”.

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0x Coinbase Crypto News NFTs

0x Token (ZRX) Soars 53% Amid Coinbase NFT Partnership

The native token for the Ox crypto exchange has recorded a massive spike following its partnership with Coinbase that allows Coinbase to use Ox Labs’ NFT standard for its new social NFT marketplace.

As recently reported, the Coinbase NFT social marketplace has gone into beta and will be tested by 3 million selected users on the waitlist. For Coinbase to get the market up and running, it partnered with Ox Labs which boasts that it has the “most robust feature set of any exchange protocol”.

Coinbase Partnerships Good for Price Action

According to data from CoinMarketCap, after news broke of Coinbase’s partnership the Ox token (ZRX) rallied 53 per cent. The token was at a five-month high of US$1.17 and also traded just over $1 billion volume on the day as well. The coin has since stabilised at around the $1 region.

We’re thrilled that Coinbase is using Ox to power [its] new social marketplace for NFTs and anticipate this launch will unlock a massive wave of new users into the blockchain space.

Will Warren, co-founder and co-CEO, 0x Labs
0x/USD price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap

In the past, other projects such as Mina and Propy that partnered with Coinbase also saw considerable price movement when word got out they were collaborating with the US crypto heavyweight.

What 0x Labs Brings to the Table

The Ox open standard will be the engine of the Coinbase marketplace, aiming to deliver up to 54 per cent lower gas fees to users. Additionally, Ox Labs stated in a blog post that extra features include free non-custodial listing, instant royalties for creators, collection orders and more.

Building on Ox significantly reduces the effort required by Web3 developers and NFT marketplaces to deliver a seamless multi-chain experience to their users, giving them more time to focus on their products.

0x Labs blog post

One of the big things to come out of Ox Labs is the new V4 of its protocol that allows swaps between NFTs, so that users can exchange collectibles as easily as tokens.

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Coinbase Ethereum Markets NFTs OpenSea

Coinbase Launches NFT Marketplace to Battle OpenSea Dominance

Leading US crypto exchange Coinbase has announced the imminent launch of its new NFT marketplace, with a social spin to it – like Instagram – to help connect users and creators.

The NFT marketplace is now in beta after Coinbase unveiled its plans in October last year for a “Web3 social marketplace”. It is being built on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain and reportedly “any NFT that’s for sale on the Ethereum blockchain will be searchable” on its platform.

Users who are interested in the beta and want to have a look at their collections can do it here. At launch, the exchange will allow its 43 million users to easily access NFTs through the platform. The marketplace will also be adding support for other blockchains in the near future.

Coinbase NFT marketplace beta. Source: Coinbase

For a limited time, the platform will incur zero transaction costs, except for Ethereum gas fees to process a transaction on the blockchain. The platform will also require users to use a self-custody wallet such as Metamask or the Coinbase wallet.

Social Platform to Build Engagement

The platform’s beta testers who join through the waitlist are encouraged to make use of all functions, including new social features. Having received over 8 million applications, the platform may well be in a position to compete with market leader OpenSea. This could be done by not only being an NFT marketplace, but also a platform where creators can build and engage with their communities.

According to the Coinbase announcement:

We learned that people don’t just want better tools to buy and sell NFTs – they want better ways to discover them, better ways to find the right communities, and better spaces in which they can feel connected with each other.

Sanchan Saxena, VP of product, ecosystem products, Coinbase

To create more of a community feel, the platform will add social feeds to facilitate browsing of other creators’ portfolios. In an Instagram-like approach, users will have profiles tied to their wallets so users can interact with each other. The marketplace will also incorporate a recommender based on buying history, who the user follows, and other metrics.

We’d like to make Coinbase NFT a little bit more like Instagram, as opposed to, say, an auction like eBay or something like that […] I think having people that you can follow, your favourite artists or creators, and having a feed of content that gets populated from those people you follow, could be really powerful.

Brian Armstrong, Coinbase CEO

NFT Marketplace to Become Decentralised in the Future

At this stage, the platform will operate on Coinbase’s centralised servers, but in time it will be moved to decentralised solutions. In that event, the platform will include functions such as airdrops, minting, and token-gated communities. The platform will also be used to host drops by some of its many launch partners.

Royalties play a very important part in keeping the creator economy alive and are therefore one of the major focus points of the new marketplace:

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Coinbase Crypto News Ethereum Scams Tokens

Suspicions Raised as ETH Trader Buys $400,000 in Tokens Before Coinbase Listing

An Ethereum trader bought US$400,000 worth of tokens before being listed on Coinbase, raising suspicions of possible insider trading.

The ETH address, flagged by renowned crypto trader Cobie, was able to buy tokens due to be listed on Coinbase 24 hours before the Coinbase listing announcement. The wallet was created on April 11 and the tokens were transferred to different exchanges:

It seems the trader focused on six tokens – NDX, KROM, RADAR, RAC, DFX, and PAPER – which were under consideration for listing on the exchange, suggesting (s)he had prior knowledge before the list was made public.

After the list was published, the tokens increased dramatically in price, as usually happens with tokens listed on Coinbase. The address now has a balance of more than US$500,000, a return of over 40 percent in less than 24 hours.

Coinbase is yet to respond to any of the insider trading accusations.

Not the First Frontrunning Scandal on Coinbase

This is not the first time that Coinbase has been accused of frontrunning. In February, a trader created a fresh wallet and bought millions worth of $UPI and $AVT before Coinbase announced the listing:

Sometimes you have to take these events with a grain of humour, and that’s exactly what the crypto community has done:

Frontrunning is not uncommon in crypto companies. We’ve heard before of unethical employees buying digital assets shortly after being listed. Such was the case with Nate Chastain, a former employee at NFT marketplace OpenSea who got caught snapping some NFTs for himself in September last year:

In response to OpenSea’s centralised model and NFT frontrunning, renowned DeFi developer Andre Cronje created Artion, a decentralised and open-source marketplace built on Fantom Network.

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Bored Ape Yacht Club Coinbase Crypto Exchange Crypto News NFTs

Coinbase Set to Launch 3 Animated Bored Ape-Themed Short Films

Crypto exchange Coinbase has issued a casting call to all Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT holders who’d like to see their simians featured in an upcoming animated series of short films.

The production, a three-part series titled The Degen Trilogy, designed to tie in with the exchange’s long-rumoured NFT marketplace, has called for submissions up until April 13.

Missed Out? There’s Always Part Two or Three

Ape owners who make the casting cut will receive a licensing fee of US$10,000 in ApeCoin or bitcoin, according to the film’s website, and those who miss out may be eligible for the remaining instalments of the proposed trilogy:

The film is set in the 2020s in a “chaotic” New York City where “for the first time, digital goods and services have outpaced all other indicators as a measure of value in the market”, according to the prologue.

As the old system crumbles, whole new realms spring forth from the ashes. (…) Enter the Degens. A new class of social adept, versed in the constantly re-invented tools of an ever accelerating economy.

Prologue, The Degen Trilogy

Coinbase Admits Project May Not Make Any Money

While Coinbase has said that it is unlikely to profit from the series, any proceeds would be donated to an as-yet unnamed non-profit organisation. The company added that the point of the trilogy is to “reward and connect with our communities through projects that bring the ethos of Web3 to life: collaboration, transparency, and opportunity”.

The first episode will be released at the NFT.NYC conference, scheduled to take place from June 20-23, with parts two and three to follow over the subsequent year. A Coinbase wallet is required to access the film’s website, although not to view the films.

Last week, director Kevin Smith was excoriated on Twitter after announcing his next film would be launched as an NFT. And late last year, BlockbusterDAO announced its intention to relaunch the Blockbuster brand as a film streaming service with future plans for movie financing and production.

With signs of NFT fatigue beginning to set in, it will be interesting to see whether any of these projects gets off the ground:

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Alchemy Pay Binance Coinbase Crypto News FTX OpenSea

Forbes Releases Rich List for Crypto and Blockchain Billionaires

Forbes’ crypto billionaires list has grown by seven this year, increasing to 19 members, though these new additions have not knocked Binance founder and CEO Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao off the top spot.

Recent DLT News Review: New Launches by Forbes and Visa ...
Forbes releases its crypto billionaires list this week.

The Forbes list expanded by 58 percent this year. When it was first compiled in 2018, the bar to qualify was set at US$350 million. However, as the industry has since expanded exponentially, only billionaires qualify in 2022.

Binance founder and CEO ‘CZ’ Zhao is holding tight to his top position on the list for another year. Despite Forbes downgrading CZ’s wealth estimate from US$96 billion to $65 billion, he is still several lengths out in front:

In second place is FTX founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, with a current estimated worth of US$24 billion. Bankman-Fried has grand intentions to donate much of his wealth to charities, keeping only 1 percent of his annual earnings each year, stating “I don’t want a yacht”. Brian Armstrong, CEO and founder of CoinBase, took third place with a net worth of US$6.6 billion.

Among the handful of newcomers are FTX’s co-founder Gary Wang, OpenSea co-founders Alex Atallah and Devin Finzer, Song Chi-Hyung (founder of Upbit), Kim Hyoung-nyon (Upbit’s EVP), and Nikil Viswanathan and Joseph Lau, co-founders of Alchemy.

Crypto Billionaires Line Their Pockets

For a select few, crypto investments have paid off immensely. Aussie billionaire Alex Waislitz bought crypto investments that reportedly increased in value by 400 percent. Nicknamed “Australia’s Warren Buffett”, Waislitz invested through a pre-IPO (initial public offering), which turned out to be a very smart move.

Billionaire PayPal founder Peter Thiel, on the other hand, has stated that he is disappointed he didn’t invest more before the boom.

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Banking Coinbase Crypto News Crypto Wallets Ethereum Gas MetaMask Payments Stablecoins

MetaMask iOS Update Allows Users to Buy Crypto Using a Credit Card

MetaMask now allows iPhone and Apple Pay users to buy crypto using a debit or credit card through its mobile application, eliminating the need to transfer Ethereum from a centralised exchange such as Coinbase into the app.

And in response to popular demand, MetaMask has also introduced the Apple Dark Mode feature, which will automatically open in the app as long as a user’s iPhone operating system has dark mode enabled.

Daily Deposit Limit of 400 USD

Users can now deploy their Visas and Mastercards stored in Apple Pay to buy ETH and deposit a daily maximum of US$400 into their wallets, thanks to the Wyre API (MetaMask uses two payment gateways, Wyre and Transak, to support debit card and credit card transactions).

Gas fees are also said to be lower, and some transactions may even be gasless if done on a private blockchain or if a project pays for the gas on the user’s behalf. (When completing an ETH purchase, MetaMask discloses that it does not profit from gas fees.)

Buy Stablecoins and Make Bank Transfers in 60+ Currencies

Via Transak, users have been able to buy stablecoins such as USDT, USDC and DAI on the Ethereum mainnet in MetaMask for some time now, but the latest update also allows them to make bank transfers and use credit/debit cards to buy crypto using more than 60 global currencies.

Exact payment methods and fees vary depending on the location. Earlier this month, OpenSea and Metamask blocked users from countries including Iran and Venezuela after both platforms cited compliance issues. It was later confirmed that Ethereum’s Infura cut off users to separatist areas in Ukraine, accidentally blocking Venezuelan users as well.

Just this week, the EU Parliament announced its intention to extend checks to cover privately managed unhosted wallets, including MetaMask, despite fears that such rules could prove unenforceable.

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Crypto is Expanding in Brazil as Coinbase Swoops to Buy its Biggest Crypto Exchange

Coinbase is reportedly close to acquiring 2TM, the owner of Mercado Bitcoin, Brazil’s largest exchange, according to a local newspaper that didn’t disclose its sources.

According to the report by Brazilian newspaper Estadão, Coinbase and 2TM have been in talks since April 2021, a year in which the South American nation experienced a massive surge in crypto adoption that tripled stablecoin trading.

Mercado Bitcoin surpassed three million customers in 2021, of which one-third joined the exchange in that same year. During that time, the exchange reached trading volumes of over US$7 billion.

Rio de Janeiro Turns into a Crypto Hub

Shortly after the crypto boom in Brazil, several crypto companies shifted their focus onto the nation, including other leading exchanges such as Binance and Crypto.com.

Rio de Janeiro – Brazil’s third-largest city by population – will reportedly receive crypto for tax payments, making it the first Brazilian city to embrace payments via digital assets. Commenting on the matter was Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, who tweeted:

Binance Expands its Brazilian Base

During his visit to Brazil on March 17, Zhao said Binance was set to acquire several banks and payment processors nationally and also looked forward to expanding its 100-person Brazilian team.

Brazil has been one of the few countries in the South American region to have supported and accelerated the development of proper infrastructure for digital assets nationwide.

As Crypto News Australia reported, last year Brazil became the second jurisdiction to approve a Bitcoin exchange traded fund (ETF). Both Brazil and Peru are now looking forward to developing their own central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) by the end of 2022.

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Coinbase Crypto News DeFi Tokens

Web3 Token Mina Soars 75% Amid Coinbase Listing and $92 Million Investment

A new Web3 token, MINA, has soared over 75 percent this week following a US$92 million investment and a recent listing on one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, Coinbase.

World’s ‘Lightest Blockchain’ Survives Massive Sell-Off

Self-described as the world’s lightest blockchain with a fixed size of 22 KB, the Mina Protocol is a fast-growing platform for zero-knowledge smart contract development.

The protocol’s native token, MINA, has been recovering from a sharp price drop of over 70 percent from its all-time high of US$6.71 in November 2021. The cryptocurrency now hovers at $2.49 per coin, boosted by bullish sentiment after the protocol sold $92 million worth of MINA tokens to Three Arrow Capital and FTX Ventures.

MINA daily chart. Source: TradingView

The Coinbase Effect

What further boosted MINA’s price was Coinbase’s support for the token, as per an announcement on March 23. Trading will be paired with Tether (USDT), once liquidity conditions are met.

As Coinbase is one of the largest crypto exchanges internationally by trading volume, a listing surely adds massive value to any cryptocurrency project. In January this year, real estate smart contract token Propy soared 227 percent after being listed on the exchange.