Coinbase Expansion Analysis: Evolving from a Crypto Exchange to an 'Everything Exchange'

Coinbase recently announced the launch of stock trading and prediction market services in the U.S., partnering with established platforms like Kalshi, marking a key step from single crypto asset matching to a ‘comprehensive financial ecosystem’ [1][2]. Under the ‘Everything Exchange’ positioning, this initiative introduces 24/5 stock trading with no fees, prediction markets (via Kalshi order flow revenue share), and potential future products like perpetual contracts (in non-U.S. dollar markets). It aims to build higher-frequency, broader coverage trading stickiness, increasing platform users’ ‘average Lifetime Value (LTV)’ and ‘cross-sell rate’. This multi-asset/multi-product overlay can buffer the impact of crypto market volatility on overall Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) and effectively extend users’ active time windows on the platform, supporting long-term growth of active accounts and diversification of service fee revenue [1][2].

This expansion brings Coinbase into direct product competition with ‘traffic-based’ brokers like Robinhood: while traditional brokers have涉足 crypto, most rely on third-party matching for crypto services, making it hard to achieve low-cost, in-house liquidity; Coinbase can leverage its mature blockchain infrastructure for real-time settlement, cross-asset integration (e.g., tokenized stocks) and asset custody consolidation, forming a unique value proposition of ‘account + custody + decentralized native assets’. Meanwhile, prediction markets, as high-frequency event-driven trading products, can boost platform information stickiness and user engagement frequency. By leveraging Kalshi’s licensing framework for regulatory compliance, it can also accumulate key behavioral metrics (e.g., event sensitivity and capital curves) for risk control/data teams, further enhancing the intelligence of algorithmic recommendations and AI assistants like Coinbase Advisor [2][3].

As of the close on December 17, 2025, Coinbase’s market capitalization is approximately $62.48 billion, with a TTM P/E ratio of about 21.1x and a price-to-book ratio of around 4.0x, reflecting its leading profitability (net profit margin of 41.95%) [0]. Despite recent stock price declines dragged by overall market and Bitcoin drops (down about 23.5% in the past 30 days), its long-term gain since 2023 is nearly sixfold, indicating investors’ high expectations for its ‘crypto + mainstream finance’ portfolio [0]. Financial analysis shows its free cash flow remained positive in 2024, with high ROE (26.34%) and a stable cash/debt structure, providing financial flexibility for continuous investment and marketing during product expansion [0].

The current expansion faces two major challenges: 1) After entering stock and prediction markets, Coinbase needs to coordinate with SEC/national options exchanges on compliance and market structure to avoid regulatory ambiguities similar to crypto; 2) Competitors like Robinhood or Webull may quickly ramp up marketing with low fees and large non-crypto user bases. From a risk control perspective, Coinbase can use its existing KYC/AML system and proprietary liquidity pool to reduce premium volatility and liquidity dispersion through ‘selected targets and limited access’ strategies in the initial product phase; additionally, Base/Layer-2 ecosystem expansion (Solana DEX integration, custom stablecoins) helps provide faster transaction settlement and deeper order book depth for new products, thereby strengthening the synergy between ‘trading and native chain’ [1][2][4].

Chart 1 shows COIN’s price and volume trends from January 3, 2023 to December 17, 2025, along with 20/50/200-day moving averages, daily return distribution, and risk indicator heatmap. It indicates that the stock price formed a volatile downward trend in the mid-to-late 2025, consistent with volume concentration at event peaks (e.g., this system upgrade announcement); risk indicators show large daily return fluctuations but acceptable Sharpe ratio, with maximum drawdown controlled around 30%, suggesting the stock maintains a certain risk/return balance during expansion. This chart is generated by Gilin AI Broker API data, covering the period from January 3, 2023 to December 17, 2025. [0]

Coinbase’s cross-border expansion is a key pivot of its long-term strategy: while retaining crypto-native advantages, it integrates traditional stocks and event-driven prediction markets to build an integrated multi-asset portfolio ecosystem, enhancing customer lifetime value and diversifying single-asset risks. If it maintains transparency in regulatory paths, low friction in user experience, and gradually launches more tokenized/derivative products, it is expected to form a ‘crypto + mainstream’ dual-drive revenue source for 2026 and beyond. For those seeking to further quantify the contribution of each product line to GMV and predict tax/fee impacts, it is recommended to enable deep research mode to obtain more comprehensive derivative volatility models and U.S. market structure details.

[0] Gilin AI Broker API Data (includes: COIN real-time quotes, company overview, financial analysis and custom Python charts)
[1] Bloomberg - “Coinbase Announces Entry Into Prediction Markets, Stock Trading” (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-17/coinbase-announces-entry-into-prediction-markets-stock-trading)
[2] Fortune - “Coinbase announces stock trading and new Kalshi-based prediction markets” (https://fortune.com/2025/12/17/coinbase-announces-stock-trading-and-new-kalshi-based-prediction-markets/)
[3] CNBC - “Coinbase adds prediction markets and stock trading in push to be one-stop trading app” (https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/17/coinbase-prediction-markets-stock-trading-stablecoins.html)