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Deciphering Moonshot Listing Data: 50% Unavoidably Reverts to Zero, TRUMP Emerges as the Top Dog
Original Title: "Decoding Moonshot Listing Data: 50% Inevitably Zeroed, TRUMP Coin Emerges as Top Dog"
Original Author: ChandlerZ, Foresight News
Since its launch, Moonshot has quickly gained recognition in the market with its focus on the Meme coin ecosystem, and has even been praised by some industry insiders as the "Binance of Memes." Against the backdrop of a relatively low overall trading sentiment, the on-chain data of projects listed on Moonshot still provides important insights into price movements, market trends, and development progress, allowing us to better understand the Meme ecosystem.
In essence, Moonshot is a Meme trading platform built on the Solana blockchain, aiming to lower the barrier of entry for retail users into the crypto market through a streamlined registration and trading process. The platform supports multiple fiat on-ramps such as Apple Pay, credit cards, and PayPal, and facilitates fast and convenient asset withdrawals. During the Meme coin craze in the second half of 2024, Moonshot attracted users by quickly curating and listing popular tokens.
According to Dune Analytics, Moonshot's trading volume and transaction fees in 2024 showed a relatively stable development, with daily trading volumes around tens of millions of dollars and daily active traders ranging from 3,500 to 4,900. The turning point in this state came on January 18, 2025, when former U.S. President Trump launched his personal Meme coin TRUMP, which was subsequently listed on Moonshot. Trump's official tweet promoting the TRUMP token ignited a new wave of hype.
Based on official data, within 12 hours, Moonshot was recommended on TRUMP's official website as a purchase method, processing nearly $400 million in trading volume, breaking the fiat on-ramp record, and attracting over 200,000 new users.
With the decline of TRUMP and the overall market, Meme coins experienced widespread pullbacks and price fluctuations. What was Moonshot's wealth creation effect? Through an in-depth analysis of the performance of tokens listed on Moonshot in the past three months, we aim to explore its position as an emerging trading platform and the market conditions behind this effect.
March Listing: 116 Tokens, 68 Nearing Zero, One-Third Peaks Upon Listing
In this article, we have selected the tokens listed on the Moonshot platform between November 2024 and January 2025 as the research sample. The data is based on the listing time records provided by the "Moonshot Listings" account.
The overall data is as follows:
The records from "Moonshot Listings" show that during these three months, the number of tokens listed on Moonshot was 116, with 54 listed in November 2024, 38 in December, and a total of 24 listed in January 2025.
Further analysis reveals that out of the 116 listed tokens in the current market environment, only 17 are currently priced higher than their listing price, accounting for less than 15%. The vast majority of projects are currently in a downtrend, with over 85% of projects experiencing a price decline.
Due to the meme-like nature of many projects nearing zero, we also attempted to objectively calculate this data. If we define projects that have dropped by more than 90% from their peak price after listing as "nearing zero" projects, based on the statistical data, out of the 116 tokens we analyzed, 46 projects in November met this criterion, 17 in December, and 5 in January 2025, totaling 68 projects, accounting for over 58.6%. This number intuitively reflects that most tokens quickly lost market support after the initial enthusiasm.
Additionally, we found that according to the criterion of projects whose highest price increase post-listing is less than 20%, classified as "peaking upon listing," the numbers in the three statistical periods were 12, 13, and 8 projects, totaling 33 projects. This means that nearly one-third of the projects had already approached their all-time highs when they first appeared on Moonshot, but due to a lack of sustained fundamental support or a weakening market confidence, they quickly lost their potential for further gains.
40% of Tokens Double After Listing, TRUMP Dominates Funding
Approximately 40% of tokens have at least doubled in price after listing, indicating that the market showed strong enthusiasm and support for some projects early on. From the data, the top ten projects in terms of current price increase and post-listing increase to some extent exhibit overlapping trends, with some tokens holding a leading position between their all-time high and current performance. Due to specific political factors, TRUMP undoubtedly holds absolute dominance.
PNUT and 360noscope420blazeit (MLG) have achieved gains of 4797.96% and 2555.56%, respectively, while degenai, CHILLGUY, and several other projects have also surpassed the 20x gain threshold. These data indicate that, driven by extreme market sentiment and short-term speculation, some tokens have temporarily attracted extraordinary market attention and speculative capital, leading to significant price surges.
However, when compared to their all-time highs post-launch, the current price surges of the top ten projects appear relatively subdued. Currently, TRUMP has increased by 1940.70%, significantly lower than its previous peak; similarly, MLG and AI Rig Complex (ARC) have seen declines of 1034.44% and 661.32%, respectively, while the tenth-ranked Moby AI has only risen by 26.54%. This disparity reflects that although some projects have experienced explosive growth, with market sentiment becoming more rational and profit-taking widespread, the price surges of the vast majority of projects have significantly narrowed.
These two sets of data complement each other, painting a picture: in the short term, some projects have experienced explosive price surges due to market speculation, but as the market enthusiasm cools and profit-taking takes effect, very few projects can sustain continuous growth. This also reveals the speculative nature and intense price volatility in the current Meme coin market, while also exposing that after the initial frenzy, most projects are facing a harsh reality of value regression and risk reassessment.
“Peak-to-Trough” is Actually Resilient
Looking at the data on pullbacks from the peak, excluding the special case of Coinbase Wrapped BTC, those projects with pullbacks around 50% are actually among the less severely affected.
Take spinning cat (OIIAOIIA) as an example, with a pullback of about 46.94%, which can be seen as relatively mild in the context of a correction from the high. Subsequent projects like ARC, SNAI, MLG, FRIC, Butthole, and Pippin have peak-to-trough pullback percentages close to or exceeding 50%. This indicates that within the entire sample, only those few projects with pullbacks around 50% can still be considered to have fallen relatively “less,” while the majority of projects have experienced more significant price retracements.
If we stratify by market capitalization, the current high market cap Meme coin group consists of only 9 projects, with an average price increase of 440.67% and an average peak-to-trough drawdown of 60.74%. In contrast, the mid-cap group (28 projects), small-cap group (42 projects), and projects with a market cap below 1 million (37 projects) present a completely different picture. Low-cap projects are more affected by speculative sentiment and market volatility, with most of them already in a "rug pull" state.
In summary, we can see that the wealth creation effect demonstrated by this platform in the Meme field is both dramatic and exposes its inherent high-risk nature. As an emerging trading platform focused on Meme coins, Moonshot's listing effect has indeed generated amazing short-term returns for individual projects (such as TRUMP) in certain extreme market conditions, attracting a large influx of speculative capital. However, looking at the overall data, out of 116 listed projects, over 85% of them have experienced significant declines, with low-cap and sub-million-dollar market cap tokens facing a fate of almost zeroing out. The listing effect has not been able to establish widespread and enduring value support in the current market environment.
Memes themselves, as assets primarily driven by entertainment and trends, exhibit extreme and rapid price fluctuations. The hype comes fast, fades fast, and the speed of going to zero is jaw-dropping. This extreme volatility and fragility are core features of the Meme asset market, where market sentiment can easily be driven to a peak by momentary hype. However, after the hype subsides, funds quickly flow out, and the price correction or even zeroing out speed far exceeds expectations.
It can only be said that while Moonshot platform's listing effect has brought substantial returns to "some" investors, it has also sounded the alarm for market participants. In this market characterized by quick gains, speculative enthusiasm is often short-lived. Risk management and rational investment are the only way to navigate this high-risk domain.
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$COIN Joins S&P 500, but Coinbase Isn't Celebrating
On May 13, S&P Dow Jones Indices announced that Coinbase would officially replace Discover Financial Services in the S&P 500 on May 19. While other companies like Block and MicroStrategy, closely tied to Bitcoin, were already part of the S&P 500, Coinbase became the first cryptocurrency exchange whose primary business is in the index. This also signifies that cryptocurrency is gradually moving from the fringes to the mainstream in the U.S.
On the day of the announcement, Coinbase's stock price surged by 23%, surpassing the $250 mark. However, just 3 days later, Coinbase was hit by two consecutive events: a hack where employees were bribed to steal customer data and a demand for a $20 million ransom, and an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) into the authenticity of its claim of having over 100 million "verified users" in its securities filings and marketing materials. These two events acted as mini-bombs, and at the time of writing, Coinbase's stock had already dropped by over 7.3%.
Coincidentally, Discover Financial Services, being replaced by Coinbase, can also be considered the "Coinbase" of the previous payment era. Discover is a U.S.-based digital banking and payment services company headquartered in Illinois, founded in 1960. Its payment network, Discover Network, is the fourth largest payment network apart from Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.
In April, after the approval of the acquisition of Discover by the sixth-largest U.S. bank, Capital One, this well-established digital banking company of over 60 years smoothly handed over its S&P 500 "seat" to this emerging cryptocurrency "bank." This unexpected coincidence also portrayed the handover between the new and old eras in Coinbase's entry into the S&P 500, resembling a relay race scene. However, this relay baton also brought Coinbase's accumulated "external troubles and internal strife" to a tipping point.
Over the past decade, cryptocurrency exchanges have been the most stable "profit machines." They play a role in providing liquidity to the entire industry and rely on trading fees to sustain their operations. However, with the comprehensive rollout of ETF products in the U.S. market, this profit model is facing unprecedented challenges. As the leader in the "American stack," with over 80% of its business coming from the U.S., Coinbase is most affected by this.
Starting from the approval of Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs, traditional financial capital has significantly onboarded users and funds that originally belonged to exchanges in a more cost-effective, compliant, and transparent manner. The transaction fee revenue of cryptocurrency exchanges has started to decline, and this trend may further intensify in the coming months.
According to Coinbase's 2024 Q4 financial report, the platform's total trading revenue was $417 million, a 45% year-on-year decrease. The contribution of BTC and ETH's trading revenue dropped from 65% in the same period last year to less than 50%.
This decline is not a result of a decrease in market enthusiasm. In fact, since the approval of the Bitcoin ETF in January 2024, the inflow of BTC into the U.S. market has continued to reach new highs, with asset management giants like BlackRock and Fidelity rapidly expanding their management scale. Data shows that BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) alone has surpassed $17 billion in assets under management. As of mid-May 2025, the cumulative net inflow of 11 major institutional Bitcoin spot ETFs on the market has exceeded $41.5 billion, with a total net asset value of $1214.69 billion, accounting for approximately 5.91% of the total Bitcoin market capitalization.
Institutional investors and some retail investors are shifting towards ETF products, partly due to compliance and tax considerations. On one hand, ETFs have much lower trading costs compared to cryptocurrency exchanges. While Coinbase's spot trading fee rate varies annually in a tiered manner but averages around 1.49%, for example, the management fee for IBIT ETF is only 0.25%, and the majority of ETF institution fees fluctuate around 0.15% to 0.25%.
In other words, the more rational users are, the more likely they are to move from exchanges to ETF products, especially for investors aiming for long-term holdings.
According to multiple sources, several institutions, including VanEck and Grayscale, have submitted applications to the SEC for a Solana (SOL) ETF, with some institutions also planning to submit an XRP ETF proposal. Once approved, this may trigger a new round of fund migration. According to a report submitted by Coinbase to the SEC, as of April, the platform's trading revenue from XRP and Solana accounted for 18% and 10%, nearly one-third of the platform's fee revenue.
However, the Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs passed in 2024 also reduced the fees for these two tokens on Coinbase from 30% and 15% to 26% and 10%, respectively. If the SOL and XRP ETFs are approved, it will further undermine the core fee revenue of exchanges like Coinbase.
The expansion of ETF products is gradually weakening the financial intermediary status of cryptocurrency exchanges. From their original roles as matchmakers and clearers to now gradually becoming mere "on-ramps and off-ramps" for funds, exchanges are seeing their marginal value squeezed by ETFs.
On May 12, 2025, SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins gave a keynote speech at the Tokenization and Cryptocurrency Working Group roundtable. The theme of his speech revolved around "It is a new day at the SEC," where he indicated that the SEC would not approach enforcement and regulation the same way as before but would instead pave the way for cryptocurrency assets in the U.S. market.
With signs of cryptocurrency compliance such as the SEC's "NEW DAY" declaration, an increasing number of traditional brokerages are attempting to enter the cryptocurrency industry. One of the most representative cases is the well-known U.S. brokerage Robinhood, which began expanding its crypto business in 2018. By the time of its IPO in 2021, Robinhood's crypto business revenue accounted for over 50% of the company, with a significant boost from the Dogecoin "moonshot" promoted by Musk.
In Q1 2025 earnings report, Robinhood showcased strong growth, especially in revenue from cryptocurrency and options trading. Fueled by Trump's Memecoin, cryptocurrency-related revenue reached $250 million, nearly doubling year-over-year. Consequently, Robinhood Gold subscription users reached 3.5 million, a 90% increase from the previous year, with the rapid growth of Robinhood Gold providing the company with a stable source of income.
Meanwhile, RobinHood is actively pursuing acquisitions in the cryptocurrency space. In 2024, it announced a $2 billion acquisition of the long-standing European cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp. Additionally, Canada's largest cryptocurrency CEX, WonderFi, which recently went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange, also announced its integration with RobinHood Crypto. After obtaining virtual asset licenses in the UK, Canada, Singapore, and other markets, RobinHood has taken a proactive approach in the compliant cryptocurrency trading market.
Furthermore, an increasing number of brokerage firms are exploring the same path. Futu Securities, Tiger Brokers, and others are also dipping their toes into cryptocurrency trading, with some having applied for or obtained the VA license from the Hong Kong SFC. Although their user bases are currently small, traditional brokerages have a natural advantage in user trust, regulatory licenses, and low fee structures. This could pose a threat to native cryptocurrency platforms in the future.
In April 2025, security researchers discovered that some Coinbase user data was leaked on the dark web. While the platform initially responded by attributing it to a "technical misinformation," it still raised concerns among users regarding its security and privacy protection. Just two days before Dow Jones Indexes announced Coinbase's addition to the S&P 500 Index, on May 11, 2025, Coinbase received an email from an unknown threat actor claiming to have obtained customer account information and internal documents, demanding a $20 million ransom to keep the data private. Subsequent investigations confirmed the data breach.
Cybercriminals obtained the data by bribing overseas customer service agents and support staff, mainly in "non-U.S. regions such as India." These agents abused their access to Coinbase's internal customer support system and stole customer data. As early as February this year, blockchain detective ZachXBT revealed on X platform that between December 2024 and January 2025, Coinbase users lost over $65 million to social engineering scams, with the actual amount potentially higher.
Among the victims was a well-known figure, 67-year-old Ed Suman, an established artist in the art world for nearly two decades, having been involved in the creation of artworks such as Jeff Koons' "Balloon Dog" sculpture. Earlier this year, he fell victim to an impersonation scam involving fake Coinbase customer support, resulting in a loss of over $2 million in cryptocurrency. ZachXBT critiqued Coinbase for its inadequate handling of such scams, noting that other major exchanges have not faced similar issues and recommending Coinbase to enhance its security measures.
Amidst a series of ongoing social engineering incidents, although there has not been any impact on user assets at the technical level so far, it has raised concerns among many retail and institutional investors. Especially institutions holding massive assets on Coinbase. Just considering the U.S. BTC ETF institutions, as of mid-May 2025, they collectively hold nearly 840,000 BTC, and 75% of these are custodied by Coinbase. If we price BTC at $100,000, this amount reaches a staggering $63 billion, which is equivalent to the nominal GDP of two Iceland in the year 2024.
In addition, Coinbase Custody also serves over 300 institutional clients, including hedge funds, family offices, pension funds, and endowments. As of the Q1 2025 financial report, Coinbase's total assets under management (including institutional and retail clients) reached $404 billion. The specific amount of institutional custodied assets was not explicitly disclosed in the latest report, but it should still be over 50% based on the Q4 2024 report.
Once this security barrier is breached, not only could the rate of user attrition far exceed expectations, but more importantly, institutional trust in it would undermine the foundation of its business. Therefore, after a hacking event, Coinbase's stock price plummeted significantly.
Facing a decline in spot trading fee revenue, Coinbase is also accelerating its transformation, attempting to find growth opportunities in derivatives and emerging assets. Coinbase acquired a stake in the options platform Deribit at the end of 2024 and announced the official launch of perpetual contract products in 2025. This acquisition fills in Coinbase's gap in options trading and its relatively small global market share.
Deribit has a strong presence in non-U.S. markets, especially in Asia and Europe. The acquisition has enabled Coinbase to gain a dominant position in bitcoin and ethereum options trading on Deribit, accounting for approximately 80% of the global options trading volume, with daily trading volume remaining above $2 billion.
Meanwhile, 80-90% of Deribit's customer base consists of institutional investors, with their professionalism and liquidity in the Bitcoin and Ethereum options market highly favored by institutions. Coinbase's compliance advantage, coupled with its already robust institutional ecosystem, makes it even more suitable. By using institutions as an entry point, it can face the squeeze from giants like Binance and OKX in the derivatives market.
Facing a similar dilemma is Kraken, which is attempting to replicate Binance Futures' model in non-U.S. markets. Since the derivatives market relies more on professional users, fee rates are relatively higher and stickiness is stronger, making it a significant source of revenue for exchanges. In the first half of 2025, Kraken completed the acquisition of TradeStation Crypto and a futures exchange, aiming to build a complete derivatives trading ecosystem to hedge the risk of declining spot transaction fee income.
With the surge of Memecoin in 2024, Binance, OKX, and various CEX platforms began massively listing small-market-cap, highly volatile tokens to activate active trading users. Due to the wealth effect and trading activity of Memecoins, Coinbase was also forced to join the battle, successively listing popular tokens from the Solana ecosystem such as BOOK OF MEME and Dogwifhat. Although these coins are controversial, they are frequently traded, with fee rates several times higher than mainstream coins, serving as a "blood-boosting" method for spot trading.
However, due to its status as a publicly traded company, this practice is a riskier endeavor for Coinbase. Even in the current crypto-friendly environment, the SEC is still investigating whether tokens like SOL, ADA, and SAND constitute securities.
In addition to the forced transformation strategies carried out by the aforementioned CEXs, they are also starting to lay out RWAs and the most talked-about stablecoin payment fields, such as the PYUSD launched through a collaboration between Coinbase and Paypal, Coinbase's support for the Euro stablecoin EURC by Circle that complies with EU MiCA regulatory requirements, or the USD1 launched through a collaboration between Binance and WIFL. In the increasingly crowded trading field, many CEXs have shifted their focus from just the trading market to the application field.
The golden age of transaction fees has quietly ended, and the second half of the crypto exchange platform game has silently begun.
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Source: Overheard on CT (tg: @overheardonct), Kaito
PUMP: Today's discussions about PUMP focus on its new creator revenue-sharing model: the platform will allocate 50% of PumpSwap revenue to token creators, sparking varied reactions from users. Some criticize the move as insufficient or even misleading, while others view it as a positive step the platform is taking to reward creators. Meanwhile, PUMP faces market pressure from emerging competitors like LetsBONKfun and Raydium, which are rapidly gaining market share. Users also express concerns about PUMP's sustainability and potential regulatory risks in the U.S., with discussions extending to the platform's impact on the entire memecoin ecosystem.
COINBASE: Today, Coinbase became the first crypto company to join the S&P 500 Index, replacing Discover Financial Services, sparking widespread industry attention. The entire crypto community views this milestone as a significant development, signaling that crypto assets are further integrating into the mainstream financial system. The news has sparked lively discussions on Twitter, with many users pointing out that this may attract more institutional investors to enter the Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency markets.
XRP: XRP became the focal point of today's crypto discussion, with its significant market movements and strategic advances drawing attention. XRP has surpassed USDT to become the third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, sparking market excitement and discussions about its future potential. The surge in market capitalization and price is believed to be related to increasing institutional interest, deepening strategic partnerships, and its role in the crypto ecosystem. Additionally, XRP's integration into multiple financial systems and its potential as a macro asset class are also seen as key factors driving the current market sentiment.
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Within 24 hours, GOONC's market cap soared to 70 million, could GOONC be the next billion-dollar dog on the Believe platform?
Bitcoin has broken $100,000, Ethereum has surpassed 2500, and is Solana's hot streak about to make a comeback?
The current market is in a state of macro euphoria, with GOONC riding the wave today, skyrocketing 10x in just a few hours, reaching a market cap of tens of millions of dollars, trading volume soaring past 50 million, and rumors swirling that the developer may be from OpenAI (unconfirmed but intriguing enough).
A ludicrous and absurd Solana meme that some actually buy into.
GOONC is a meme coin that has sprouted from the "gooning" subculture, offering no technological innovation or practical use, its sole function being speculation.
It takes inspiration from an NSFW term "gooning," which refers to a person being deeply immersed in certain content (you know what), eventually entering a nearly religious-like trance.
In Reddit (such as r/GOONED, r/GoonCaves) and some counterculture media outlets (such as MEL Magazine in 2020), "gooning" has gradually transitioned from an adult label to a meme-addicted, digital content and virtual self-indulgence synonym, arguably the epitome of Degen spirit.
GOONC is playing around with this concept, packaging the addictive nature, uselessness, and irony of gooning into a tradable financial product. The project team has made it clear: "We do not solve blockchain problems, we only trade absurdity." Blunt but oddly genuine.
GOONC launched on May 13, 2025, using the meme coin launch platform Believe App's LaunchCoin module on Solana. This tool is highly Degen: zero technical barriers, a few clicks to create a coin, perfect for projects like GOONC that can come up with ideas out of the blue.
The mastermind behind GOONC is also quite something and is the most talked-about, with KOL @basedalexandoor on X platform (alias "Pata van Goon") personally involved. His profile even caught the attention of Marc Andreessen, co-founder of a16z, making onlookers unable to resist speculating if GOONC has a hint of OpenAI lineage.
While this 'OpenAI Endorsement' is currently just community speculation, it is definitely a good card to play to fuel hype. Saying "we are pure speculation" on one hand, while tagging a few "AI + a16z" on the other.
GOONC took off as soon as it launched. After its launch on May 13, 2025, its market capitalization skyrocketed to $22 million within 4 hours, with a trading volume exceeding $25.6 million in 24 hours. According to platform data, the first day of trading saw an astonishing +41,100% surge, soaring from $0.0000001 to $0.02, becoming a "missed-the-boat" situation.
GOONC quickly formed an active trading community post-launch, with a lot of discussion and trading signals appearing on X platform (such as the 292x return signal provided by DeBot). Liquidity pools on exchanges like Raydium and Meteora grew rapidly, supporting high trading volumes and price increases.
The real climax occurred between May 13 and May 14, with the market cap rising to $5.5 million in the morning and directly surpassing $55 million in the afternoon. By the 14th, it briefly approached a $70 million market cap, with the trading volume soaring to $59 million. Some community members even posted screenshots claiming an increase of +85,000%, creating a new myth out of the ruins.
As of 1:30 pm on May 14, the price stabilized around $0.039, with a total market cap and FDV both around $39.6 million, and a 24-hour trading volume of $5.43 million. Active platforms include XT.COM, LBank, Meteora, and others.
Although there was a slight pullback from the peak ($0.07), the coin's popularity remains strong. For a coin that relies purely on "irony + community + X post" to thrive, this performance is already at a stellar level.
Currently, the background of the token's development team is not transparent, increasing the potential risk of a rug pull. Rugcheck.xyz warns that the creator of the GOONC contract may have permission to modify the contract (e.g., change fees or mint additional tokens), posing certain security risks.
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$COIN Joins S&P 500, but Coinbase Isn't Celebrating
On May 13, S&P Dow Jones Indices announced that Coinbase would officially replace Discover Financial Services in the S&P 500 on May 19. While other companies like Block and MicroStrategy, closely tied to Bitcoin, were already part of the S&P 500, Coinbase became the first cryptocurrency exchange whose primary business is in the index. This also signifies that cryptocurrency is gradually moving from the fringes to the mainstream in the U.S.
On the day of the announcement, Coinbase's stock price surged by 23%, surpassing the $250 mark. However, just 3 days later, Coinbase was hit by two consecutive events: a hack where employees were bribed to steal customer data and a demand for a $20 million ransom, and an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) into the authenticity of its claim of having over 100 million "verified users" in its securities filings and marketing materials. These two events acted as mini-bombs, and at the time of writing, Coinbase's stock had already dropped by over 7.3%.
Coincidentally, Discover Financial Services, being replaced by Coinbase, can also be considered the "Coinbase" of the previous payment era. Discover is a U.S.-based digital banking and payment services company headquartered in Illinois, founded in 1960. Its payment network, Discover Network, is the fourth largest payment network apart from Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.
In April, after the approval of the acquisition of Discover by the sixth-largest U.S. bank, Capital One, this well-established digital banking company of over 60 years smoothly handed over its S&P 500 "seat" to this emerging cryptocurrency "bank." This unexpected coincidence also portrayed the handover between the new and old eras in Coinbase's entry into the S&P 500, resembling a relay race scene. However, this relay baton also brought Coinbase's accumulated "external troubles and internal strife" to a tipping point.
Over the past decade, cryptocurrency exchanges have been the most stable "profit machines." They play a role in providing liquidity to the entire industry and rely on trading fees to sustain their operations. However, with the comprehensive rollout of ETF products in the U.S. market, this profit model is facing unprecedented challenges. As the leader in the "American stack," with over 80% of its business coming from the U.S., Coinbase is most affected by this.
Starting from the approval of Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs, traditional financial capital has significantly onboarded users and funds that originally belonged to exchanges in a more cost-effective, compliant, and transparent manner. The transaction fee revenue of cryptocurrency exchanges has started to decline, and this trend may further intensify in the coming months.
According to Coinbase's 2024 Q4 financial report, the platform's total trading revenue was $417 million, a 45% year-on-year decrease. The contribution of BTC and ETH's trading revenue dropped from 65% in the same period last year to less than 50%.
This decline is not a result of a decrease in market enthusiasm. In fact, since the approval of the Bitcoin ETF in January 2024, the inflow of BTC into the U.S. market has continued to reach new highs, with asset management giants like BlackRock and Fidelity rapidly expanding their management scale. Data shows that BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) alone has surpassed $17 billion in assets under management. As of mid-May 2025, the cumulative net inflow of 11 major institutional Bitcoin spot ETFs on the market has exceeded $41.5 billion, with a total net asset value of $1214.69 billion, accounting for approximately 5.91% of the total Bitcoin market capitalization.
Institutional investors and some retail investors are shifting towards ETF products, partly due to compliance and tax considerations. On one hand, ETFs have much lower trading costs compared to cryptocurrency exchanges. While Coinbase's spot trading fee rate varies annually in a tiered manner but averages around 1.49%, for example, the management fee for IBIT ETF is only 0.25%, and the majority of ETF institution fees fluctuate around 0.15% to 0.25%.
In other words, the more rational users are, the more likely they are to move from exchanges to ETF products, especially for investors aiming for long-term holdings.
According to multiple sources, several institutions, including VanEck and Grayscale, have submitted applications to the SEC for a Solana (SOL) ETF, with some institutions also planning to submit an XRP ETF proposal. Once approved, this may trigger a new round of fund migration. According to a report submitted by Coinbase to the SEC, as of April, the platform's trading revenue from XRP and Solana accounted for 18% and 10%, nearly one-third of the platform's fee revenue.
However, the Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs passed in 2024 also reduced the fees for these two tokens on Coinbase from 30% and 15% to 26% and 10%, respectively. If the SOL and XRP ETFs are approved, it will further undermine the core fee revenue of exchanges like Coinbase.
The expansion of ETF products is gradually weakening the financial intermediary status of cryptocurrency exchanges. From their original roles as matchmakers and clearers to now gradually becoming mere "on-ramps and off-ramps" for funds, exchanges are seeing their marginal value squeezed by ETFs.
On May 12, 2025, SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins gave a keynote speech at the Tokenization and Cryptocurrency Working Group roundtable. The theme of his speech revolved around "It is a new day at the SEC," where he indicated that the SEC would not approach enforcement and regulation the same way as before but would instead pave the way for cryptocurrency assets in the U.S. market.
With signs of cryptocurrency compliance such as the SEC's "NEW DAY" declaration, an increasing number of traditional brokerages are attempting to enter the cryptocurrency industry. One of the most representative cases is the well-known U.S. brokerage Robinhood, which began expanding its crypto business in 2018. By the time of its IPO in 2021, Robinhood's crypto business revenue accounted for over 50% of the company, with a significant boost from the Dogecoin "moonshot" promoted by Musk.
In Q1 2025 earnings report, Robinhood showcased strong growth, especially in revenue from cryptocurrency and options trading. Fueled by Trump's Memecoin, cryptocurrency-related revenue reached $250 million, nearly doubling year-over-year. Consequently, Robinhood Gold subscription users reached 3.5 million, a 90% increase from the previous year, with the rapid growth of Robinhood Gold providing the company with a stable source of income.
Meanwhile, RobinHood is actively pursuing acquisitions in the cryptocurrency space. In 2024, it announced a $2 billion acquisition of the long-standing European cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp. Additionally, Canada's largest cryptocurrency CEX, WonderFi, which recently went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange, also announced its integration with RobinHood Crypto. After obtaining virtual asset licenses in the UK, Canada, Singapore, and other markets, RobinHood has taken a proactive approach in the compliant cryptocurrency trading market.
Furthermore, an increasing number of brokerage firms are exploring the same path. Futu Securities, Tiger Brokers, and others are also dipping their toes into cryptocurrency trading, with some having applied for or obtained the VA license from the Hong Kong SFC. Although their user bases are currently small, traditional brokerages have a natural advantage in user trust, regulatory licenses, and low fee structures. This could pose a threat to native cryptocurrency platforms in the future.
In April 2025, security researchers discovered that some Coinbase user data was leaked on the dark web. While the platform initially responded by attributing it to a "technical misinformation," it still raised concerns among users regarding its security and privacy protection. Just two days before Dow Jones Indexes announced Coinbase's addition to the S&P 500 Index, on May 11, 2025, Coinbase received an email from an unknown threat actor claiming to have obtained customer account information and internal documents, demanding a $20 million ransom to keep the data private. Subsequent investigations confirmed the data breach.
Cybercriminals obtained the data by bribing overseas customer service agents and support staff, mainly in "non-U.S. regions such as India." These agents abused their access to Coinbase's internal customer support system and stole customer data. As early as February this year, blockchain detective ZachXBT revealed on X platform that between December 2024 and January 2025, Coinbase users lost over $65 million to social engineering scams, with the actual amount potentially higher.
Among the victims was a well-known figure, 67-year-old Ed Suman, an established artist in the art world for nearly two decades, having been involved in the creation of artworks such as Jeff Koons' "Balloon Dog" sculpture. Earlier this year, he fell victim to an impersonation scam involving fake Coinbase customer support, resulting in a loss of over $2 million in cryptocurrency. ZachXBT critiqued Coinbase for its inadequate handling of such scams, noting that other major exchanges have not faced similar issues and recommending Coinbase to enhance its security measures.
Amidst a series of ongoing social engineering incidents, although there has not been any impact on user assets at the technical level so far, it has raised concerns among many retail and institutional investors. Especially institutions holding massive assets on Coinbase. Just considering the U.S. BTC ETF institutions, as of mid-May 2025, they collectively hold nearly 840,000 BTC, and 75% of these are custodied by Coinbase. If we price BTC at $100,000, this amount reaches a staggering $63 billion, which is equivalent to the nominal GDP of two Iceland in the year 2024.
In addition, Coinbase Custody also serves over 300 institutional clients, including hedge funds, family offices, pension funds, and endowments. As of the Q1 2025 financial report, Coinbase's total assets under management (including institutional and retail clients) reached $404 billion. The specific amount of institutional custodied assets was not explicitly disclosed in the latest report, but it should still be over 50% based on the Q4 2024 report.
Once this security barrier is breached, not only could the rate of user attrition far exceed expectations, but more importantly, institutional trust in it would undermine the foundation of its business. Therefore, after a hacking event, Coinbase's stock price plummeted significantly.
Facing a decline in spot trading fee revenue, Coinbase is also accelerating its transformation, attempting to find growth opportunities in derivatives and emerging assets. Coinbase acquired a stake in the options platform Deribit at the end of 2024 and announced the official launch of perpetual contract products in 2025. This acquisition fills in Coinbase's gap in options trading and its relatively small global market share.
Deribit has a strong presence in non-U.S. markets, especially in Asia and Europe. The acquisition has enabled Coinbase to gain a dominant position in bitcoin and ethereum options trading on Deribit, accounting for approximately 80% of the global options trading volume, with daily trading volume remaining above $2 billion.
Meanwhile, 80-90% of Deribit's customer base consists of institutional investors, with their professionalism and liquidity in the Bitcoin and Ethereum options market highly favored by institutions. Coinbase's compliance advantage, coupled with its already robust institutional ecosystem, makes it even more suitable. By using institutions as an entry point, it can face the squeeze from giants like Binance and OKX in the derivatives market.
Facing a similar dilemma is Kraken, which is attempting to replicate Binance Futures' model in non-U.S. markets. Since the derivatives market relies more on professional users, fee rates are relatively higher and stickiness is stronger, making it a significant source of revenue for exchanges. In the first half of 2025, Kraken completed the acquisition of TradeStation Crypto and a futures exchange, aiming to build a complete derivatives trading ecosystem to hedge the risk of declining spot transaction fee income.
With the surge of Memecoin in 2024, Binance, OKX, and various CEX platforms began massively listing small-market-cap, highly volatile tokens to activate active trading users. Due to the wealth effect and trading activity of Memecoins, Coinbase was also forced to join the battle, successively listing popular tokens from the Solana ecosystem such as BOOK OF MEME and Dogwifhat. Although these coins are controversial, they are frequently traded, with fee rates several times higher than mainstream coins, serving as a "blood-boosting" method for spot trading.
However, due to its status as a publicly traded company, this practice is a riskier endeavor for Coinbase. Even in the current crypto-friendly environment, the SEC is still investigating whether tokens like SOL, ADA, and SAND constitute securities.
In addition to the forced transformation strategies carried out by the aforementioned CEXs, they are also starting to lay out RWAs and the most talked-about stablecoin payment fields, such as the PYUSD launched through a collaboration between Coinbase and Paypal, Coinbase's support for the Euro stablecoin EURC by Circle that complies with EU MiCA regulatory requirements, or the USD1 launched through a collaboration between Binance and WIFL. In the increasingly crowded trading field, many CEXs have shifted their focus from just the trading market to the application field.
The golden age of transaction fees has quietly ended, and the second half of the crypto exchange platform game has silently begun.
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