The meeting reportedly happened hours before Donald Trump posted to his social media platform, echoing some of Brian Armstrong's public statements about stablecoin yield. US President Donald Trump reportedly met with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong just hours before issuing a statement criticizing banks for holding a market structure bill “hostage.” According to a Tuesday Politico report, Trump met privately with Armstrong after a group of Coinbase representatives went to the White House. The details of the reported meeting were unclear, but the president posted to his Truth Social channel afterwards, that “the US needs to get Market Structure done, ASAP.” “The banks are hitting record profits, and we are not going to allow them to undermine our powerful Crypto Agenda [...],” said Trump in his Tuesday post. Read more
Coming as BTC exchange-traded funds flows turn positive, the moves follow the Wall Street bank's applications with the SEC for Bitcoin, Solana, and Ethereum funds. Financial services giant Morgan Stanley selected Bank of New York (BNY) Mellon, a global financial services company, and crypto exchange Coinbase as custodians for its Bitcoin Trust Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF), according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday. The custodians will hold all of the fund’s Bitcoin (BTC) in cold storage, or offline methods of storing Bitcoin private keys, with a “portion” of the BTC moving to hot wallets connected to the internet at times for creation and redemption purposes, according to the SEC filing for Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust. The filing said: Morgan Stanley filed SEC applications for spot BTC and SOL (SOL) ETFs in January. Both funds are passive investment vehicles that hold and track the prices of the underlying crypto assets. Read more
Lawmakers asked if stablecoins could drain bank deposits and threaten financial stability, while Coinbase and Innovate Finance warned that strict regulation risks driving innovation offshore. The United Kingdom House of Lords grilled Coinbase’s top international policy executive on Wednesday over whether stablecoins would drain bank deposits and add new risks to the UK financial system, pressing him on everything from Silicon Valley Bank‑style runs to illicit finance and Know Your Customer (KYC) rules. During the Lords’ stablecoins inquiry, Tom Duff Gordon, Coinbase’s vice president for international policy, insisted that fully reserved, regulated stablecoins were “safer than uninsured bank deposits” because they are backed one‑to‑one by cash and high‑quality government securities and can be redeemed at par. He argued that stablecoins could materially reduce payment costs, speed up cross‑border payments, and underpin new artificial intelligence driven “agentic” payment flows. Read more
The purchases came as geopolitical tensions tied to the US and Israel's conflict with Iran weighed on global markets, pushing major indexes lower. Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest increased its exposure to crypto-related equities, adding shares of Coinbase and Robinhood Markets across several of its exchange-traded funds (ETFs) as broader markets pulled back. The company purchased a combined 22,452 shares of Coinbase across the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK), ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) and ARK Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF), according to trade notifications for Tuesday. Based on Coinbase’s closing price of $182.36 during the day, the purchase was valued at about $4.1 million. Ark also accumulated 158,587 shares of Robinhood through the same ETFs. With Robinhood closing at $76.07, the transaction was valued at about $12 million. Read more
The GIF ETF combines nine leveraged single-stock strategies into a fund designed to generate weekly income through covered call options. US-based asset manager REX Shares has launched an exchange-traded fund that bundles leveraged covered-call strategies tied to nine individual stocks, including crypto-linked names Coinbase and Strategy, into a single income-focused product trading under the ticker GIF. According to Thursday’s announcement, the fund holds equal-weighted positions in REX’s existing single-stock Growth & Income ETFs, each of which targets about 1.25x exposure to its underlying equity while writing covered calls on a portion of the portfolio to generate option premium income. GIF trades on Cboe Global Markets and each underlying ETF seeks to distribute income on a weekly basis, with payouts largely derived from covered call premiums. Read more
The exchange now allows US customers to trade thousands of stocks and ETFs commission-free alongside crypto, with 24/5 access and instant funding. Coinbase has opened stock and exchange-traded fund trading to all US users, allowing customers to buy and sell equities alongside crypto within the same app on a 24/5 basis. The rollout includes commission-free trading, fractional shares, and instant funding with USD or USDC. According to a company post on Tuesday, thousands of stocks are available to trade 24 hours a day, five days a week, with approximately 6,000 securities currently supported and plans to expand that number in the coming weeks. Coinbase said it aims to introduce stock perpetual futures for non-US users through Coinbase Bermuda Ltd., subject to regulatory approval, and said it intends to offer tokenized equities in the future. Read more
The UK-listed Bitcoin treasury company says the facility will bridge equity settlements, enabling faster Bitcoin purchases during volatile markets. United Kingdom-listed Bitcoin treasury firm The Smarter Web Company has secured a $30 million Bitcoin-backed credit facility from Coinbase Credit. The facility is secured against Bitcoin held in custody with Coinbase. The company said Tuesday the facility is designed to help it deploy capital into Bitcoin (BTC) immediately after equity raises, reducing settlement timing risk during volatile markets. Smarter Web said it does not intend to use the facility as long-term debt to finance Bitcoin purchases. Smarter Web is listed on the London Stock Exchange’s Main Market and also trades on the OTCQB Venture Market in the United States. The company describes Bitcoin as a core component of its treasury strategy and has previously said it aims to expand its digital asset holdings. Read more
A transaction-level analysis of 92 community banks found $78.3 million in net deposits moved to Coinbase over 13 months, with money market accounts losing most outflows. New analysis from banking data company KlariVis found that 90% of community banks in its sample had customers transacting with Coinbase. Across 53 banks where transaction direction could be determined, $2.77 flowed to the crypto exchange for every $1.00 returning, resulting in a net $78.3 million deposit shift over 13 months. The study reviewed 225,577 Coinbase-related transactions across 92 community banks and found that transfers were heavily concentrated in money market accounts, where 96.3% of identifiable transaction volume represented funds leaving banks for the exchange. "In general, community banks can be defined as those owned by organizations with less than $10 billion in assets," the Federal Reserve says on its website. Read more
Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest added nearly $15.2 million in Coinbase stock across three ETFs, reversing course days after offloading more than $39 million in shares. ARK Invest has returned to buying shares of Coinbase Global after trimming its position, adding roughly $15 million worth of stock across several of its actively managed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on Friday. The Cathie Wood-led asset manager purchased 66,545 Coinbase shares through the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK), 16,832 shares through Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) and 9,477 shares through Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF), according to the firm’s daily trade disclosures. The buying activity coincided with a sharp surge in Coinbase stock. Shares closed the trading session at $164.32, up about 16.4% on the day, before edging higher in after-hours trading, according to data from Google Finance. The surge put the firm’s total purchase at roughly $15.2 million. Read more