Coinbase made an announcement at Basecamp that the Base Layer 2 blockchain is exploring a network token. And if it happens, it would be the biggest launch in YEARS. Coinbase is already one of the biggest exchanges. And it’s BY FAR the biggest ETF custodian in the industry.
Coinbase is an important player in crypto, no matter what they do. And they could soon have a token. What does that mean for you, and would it be worth buying? Let’s dive in.
Why Coinbase Is Considering A Token
First, before getting into why Base is considering a token, a question. Why don’t they have one already?
And the answer to that is the US and its regulatory environment. Coinbase has its stock already, which is a security. Their concern is that the SEC would not allow it or accuse them of compliance violations. The SEC governs Coinbase stock. And it’s unclear whether the SEC or the CFTC would regulate the issuance of a token. The chains that are commodities like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and a few others are under the eye of the CFTC. This is often better, even with the Trump-improved SEC we have now. So that’s why there has been no token before now.
Today the SEC responded to Coinbase’s petition for a writ of mandamus — asking the court to require the SEC to respond just yes or no to whether it will undertake rulemaking for our industry. The SEC’s answer? A resounding maybe. 1/7
— paulgrewal.eth (@iampaulgrewal) May 16, 2023
Now, I don’t think we have to go too deep into the reasons why a project would want a token. You know them already. But a couple of things that are Coinbase-specific include,
- Adding significant value to Coinbase for its stockholders
- RWA possibilities due to Coinbase’s clean regulatory record
- The fact that Coinbase is the biggest ETF custodian in the industry. It would be easy to tokenize ETFs on chain on Base.
- Lots of other income opportunities like the ETF one above due to Coinbase’s position in the industry.
- Good tokenomics and execution could make it a top 5 token.
Billions of dollars ride on digital asset workflows like private key signing, transaction validation, and ledger updates.@coinbase handles ~70% of $BTC #ETF custodian business & these ETFs are the fastest growing in history.
I believe these fundamental processes are already… pic.twitter.com/g6e8JiAzlA— Reggie Middleton US11196566 US11895246 US12231579 (@ReggieMiddleton) April 28, 2025
But like all things, it’s not “up only”. There are also risks. So let’s look at those.
Risks
And there are risks, too. Especially if they get the tokenomics wrong. Optimism and Arbitrum are high-quality L2s with a token that is not performing well. And looking objectively, it’s easy to see why.
Did you know the Base chain and Uniswap’s new Unichain were both built using Optimism’s tools and are part of the Optimism Superchain?
You probably didn’t because most people don’t. And you don’t know about it because Base and Uniswap don’t publicize it. Neither does Optimism. Nor does Optimism earn more money on Base chain transactions for being key to their entire setup. So the token is not aligned with what the chain actually does or the revenue it brings in.
This is a key mistake that Coinbase has to avoid if it wants the Base token to be successful.
The Base Ecosystem
Without a doubt, either DeFi or AI Agents are the biggest sector in the Base ecosystem.
For now, DeFi dominates with platforms like Morpho, Aerodrome, and any apps that work seamlessly between the Coinbase exchange and the Base chain to get people on-chain. It’s smooth and it works.
But AI Agents on Base are growing fast. Particularly, Virtuals and its ecosystem of agents. Many of you know aixbt already as the crypto trading/news AI Agent.
aave deploying $100m treasury not to fight morpho or compound.
building unbreakable moat before jpmorgan and goldman launch competing products.
first hostile takeover in defi. capital forcing consolidation before tradfi invasion.
— aixbt (@aixbt_agent) September 17, 2025
And a fast-growing presence is Base Pay. With it, you get tools to add one-click checkout with payments in USDC on Base chain. Fast, cheap, easy. That’s just how people want it. This is the sleeper sector within Base. It’s going to go farther, faster, than Solana Pay has gone so far. And Solana Pay is doing great. But they don’t have Circle as a big investor the way Base does.
What About Coinbase Stock?
Well, if you own Coinbase stock, symbol $COIN on the NASDAQ in the US, then you own a piece of an $84 billion dollar company. And the same goes for if you own the XStocks tokenized version $COINX with Backed as the custodian. What would a Base token do for Coinbase stockholders?
One way to play this, and maybe you heard us discuss it on our Space on this topic on Tuesday, is to buy Coinbase stock. The regular or the tokenized version. Why?
Because the closest comparison for a combo token of network token AND exchange token is BNB. BNB has a $130 Billion market value. Now, a Base token won’t get up to that right away. But even if it launches at $200 million, some of that goes to the team. How much of that value accrues to Coinbase stock, since Coinbase owns the chain?
No one knows the answer to this, but we know the answer is more than ZERO. So that’s one way to play this. Buy Coinbase stock or the XStocks version to hold it on-chain.
Could Base Overtake Coinbase in Value?
Now, this is an interesting question. What makes BNB so effective, and a few other exchange tokens too, is the alignment between usage and other incentives. And how these things affect the token. The more people that use Binance, the more BNB in fees gets burned each quarter. Everyone wins. Binance burns more than $1 billion worth of $BNB every quarter now.
$BNB JUST BURNED $1.02B WORTH OF TOKENS.
1.59M $BNB GONE IN Q32 BURN.
OVER 50M BNB ALREADY WIPED FROM SUPPLY.
THE HYPE IS REAL🚀 pic.twitter.com/AYB0bjyGxn
— Evan Luthra (@EvanLuthra) July 10, 2025
So if Coinbase gets the tokenomics and incentives right, watch out. Base could have a value in the hundreds of billions of dollars. And that’s more than Coinbase’s value today.
Would that continue or would the $COIN stock value rise too? No one knows. But cases like this have happened before. Some subsidiaries and sister companies are worth more than the entire company together. In fact, this is one of the ways private equity used to make big money. They would find and break up the unprofitable pieces and hold the ones that make money. Or sell one profitable piece to hold the rest for free.
Buying Coinbase stock could be a lower risk way to profit from how this all plays out.
Disclaimer
The information discussed by Altcoin Buzz is not financial advice. This is for educational, entertainment and informational purposes only. Any information or strategies are thoughts and opinions relevant to accepted levels of risk tolerance of the writer/reviewers, and their risk tolerance may be different from yours.
We are not responsible for any losses that you may incur as a result of any investments directly or indirectly related to the information provided. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are high-risk investments, so please do your due diligence.
Copyright Altcoin Buzz Pte Ltd.
The post URGENT! OPPORTUNITY WITH COINBASE TOKEN SHOCKER appeared first on Altcoin Buzz.
