Coinbase (Exchange)

Coinbase is a US-based cryptocurrency exchange and financial services company that lets individuals and institutions buy, sell, store and use digital assets. It was founded in San Francisco in 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam and has since become one of the largest crypto platforms in the world and the largest in the United States. Its parent, Coinbase Global, has been listed on the Nasdaq since April 2021 under the ticker COIN and joined the S&P 500 index in 2025.

Coinbase is a centralized exchange: it holds customers' assets, matches their orders and handles conversion to and from regular money. Beyond retail trading, it provides custody for institutions, including many US spot bitcoin and ether funds, staking services, a self-custody wallet and a layer 2 blockchain called Base. It co-founded the USDC stablecoin with Circle. Its name comes from the Bitcoin term coinbase transaction, the first transaction in each block.

Coinbase works like a currency exchange booth for crypto, combined with a bank-style app. Customers link a bank account or card, send money in and buy bitcoin, ether or other coins at the displayed price. Coinbase keeps the coins in its own secure storage on their behalf, unless they choose to move them to a wallet they control.

Because it is a regulated US company, it checks customers' identities, reports to authorities and publishes financial results like any other listed business. That makes it a common first stop for newcomers. The trade-off is that customers trust Coinbase to hold their coins safely and to keep its systems running when markets get busy.

Coinbase launched in 2012 after taking part in the Y Combinator start-up programme, initially letting users buy bitcoin through bank transfers. It became the first US crypto exchange to secure a BitLicense from New York regulators, in 2017, and opened a professional trading platform, later renamed Coinbase Pro and merged into its main exchange. In 2018 it helped launch USDC through the Centre consortium. On 14 April 2021 it went public through a direct listing rather than a traditional IPO, at a time of rising crypto prices. It launched Base in August 2023 and in 2025 bought Deribit, a major crypto options exchange, expanding its derivatives business outside the United States.

Coinbase's main business lines include:

• Retail trading. A simple app and an advanced trading platform for buying and selling hundreds of assets.
• Institutional services. Coinbase Prime offers trading, financing and crypto custody for funds, companies and banks.
• ETF custody. Coinbase is the custodian for most US spot bitcoin ETFs approved in January 2024.
• Staking and stablecoin rewards. Customers can earn rewards on certain assets, including a share of income tied to USDC.
• Self-custody and Base. A separate wallet lets users hold their own keys, and Base provides a low-cost network for applications.
• Derivatives. Futures for US customers and, through Deribit and other units, options and perpetual contracts for non-US clients.

Transaction fees remain a large source of revenue, but income from stablecoin reserves, staking and subscriptions has grown in importance.

Coinbase holds money transmitter licences in most US states and registrations or licences in several other countries, including authorisation under the European Union's MiCA regulation. In June 2023 the Securities and Exchange Commission sued Coinbase, alleging that it operated as an unregistered exchange, broker and clearing agency; the SEC dismissed the case in February 2025 as US crypto policy changed. Coinbase has been an active political participant, lobbying for clear legislation on market structure and stablecoins.

Coinbase has faced outages during periods of very high trading, criticism of its fees compared with rivals and complaints about customer support and account freezes. In 2025 it disclosed that criminals had bribed overseas customer support contractors to steal personal data of some customers, which was then used in impersonation scams; Coinbase refused to pay a ransom demand and offered to reimburse affected users. Critics also note that holding many ETF assets with one custodian concentrates risk, and that exchange custody exposes users to counterparty risk. Supporters point to its listed-company disclosure, know-your-customer controls and long record without a major loss of customer crypto as reasons it is seen as one of the more trusted platforms. The wider sector is described under Cryptocurrency Exchanges.

• Coinbase