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How to Maximize BNB Ecosystem "IDO" Gains Using Lista DAO?
In the first quarter of 2025, we witnessed the inauguration of Trump into the White House. The unparalleled liquidity in the crypto space allowed TRUMP, LIBRA, and the like to completely dominate market attention. We also witnessed the price curves of a host of new coins such as RED, IP, BERA, KAITO, among others, behaving so wildly, and the secondary contract market experienced a certain degree of revival. It was also during these two months that BNB Chain became one of the most active ecosystems, giving rise to a wealth boom. One of Binance's main goals is to seek returns for BNB holders, so the concept of CeDeFi started to take shape last year, gradually driving the development of Lista DAO, the core DeFi project in the BNB Chain ecosystem.
As the leader of the BNBFi ecosystem, Lista DAO is not only All in BNBFi but also occupies a core position in the on-chain fundraising track, becoming the main liquidity pillar for fundraising and the underlying revenue engine. More importantly, Lista DAO is the only permitted DeFi product to directly participate in Binance's pre-listing Launchpool, Megadrop, and Hodler Airdrop, meaning it has become a core infrastructure in the internal fundraising track of the Binance ecosystem. This has not only brought about a stronger liquidity aggregation effect but also positioned Lista DAO with higher strategic value in the BNBFi ecosystem and the entire DeFi field.
Decoding the 2025 Roadmap: Lista DAO's "Three-Pronged Approach"
Entering 2025, in its updated roadmap, Lista DAO is not only striving to maximize returns for BNB holders but also has an important focus on enhancing the rights of veLISTA holders through a series of empowerment measures. This includes providing rate discounts, a delayed liquidation mechanism, and other exclusive benefits for holders. It will also introduce a long-term lockup reward mechanism, combined with layered incentives and a market buyback mechanism to optimize the token's economic model, encourage more users to hold veLISTA tokens long term, and enhance the platform's stability.
In addition to empowering veLISTA, the three core pillars of Lista DAO each have corresponding growth initiatives.
Lista DAO is focused on expanding the lisUSD ecosystem, driving the adoption of lisUSD across multiple chains, especially in ecosystems lacking reliable stablecoin options, to increase lisUSD's market penetration. To further attract users and liquidity, Lista DAO also plans to launch new lisUSD products, such as fixed borrowing rates and limited free borrowing periods, to increase user engagement and provide users with more flexible financial options.
As for slisBNB, Lista DAO will optimize the staking node operation by creating smaller, more scalable nodes for further decentralization, and strengthening governance. The optimized slisBNB mechanism will enhance the stability of BNB staking and lower the staking threshold, making it easier for more users to participate in staking. In addition, the operation of small nodes will enhance the stability of BNB staking, further solidifying its core position in the DeFi space.
Similarly, there are also updates planned for the third major asset, clisBNB. Lista DAO will introduce cross-chain integration through partnerships with protocols such as StakeStone and Solv to introduce other chain staking assets, including Ethereum, to clisBNB. Leveraging the characteristics of clisBNB itself, these newly introduced assets will have the opportunity to participate in programs such as Launchpool, Megadrop, and Hodler Airdrop, with an official APR of over 30%. Additionally, cross-chain vault products will be launched to allow users to capture rewards and airdrops.
Furthermore, Lista DAO also plans to design a referral system to attract Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) to drive user growth and accelerate adoption. Combined with the existing market presence of the BNB Chain, Lista DAO is expected to excel in the attention economy. It can be said that as CZ becomes increasingly active in the BNB Chain ecosystem, Lista DAO and the BNB Chain ecosystem have a strong momentum.
Meme and DeFi Hand in Hand: How Lista DAO Goes All in on BNBFi
Two-thirds of the first quarter of 2025 have already passed, and based on Lista DAO's current update status, it has made significant progress in products such as lisUSD and slisBNB.
lisUSD + Four.Meme: Empowering the Meme Ecosystem with a Stablecoin
Previously, with the introduction of the Swap test feature by Pump.Fun, the Raydium token saw a sharp decline, and a series of coin issuance scandals such as Jupiter, Meteora, among others, were exposed. Additionally, with a large unlock of SOL looming, the Solana ecosystem is currently facing a certain development dilemma. On the other hand, the BNB Chain ecosystem has enthusiastically picked up the meme baton, staging consecutive events such as test coin battles and broccoli wars, revitalizing the entire ecosystem's liquidity landscape.
On February 13, Lista DAO announced a strategic partnership with Four.Meme, whereby Four.Meme will fully support the creation and trading of the lisUSD stablecoin issued by Lista DAO to expand the platform's ecosystem. Four.Meme will also stake a portion of BNB with ListaDAO to receive clisBNB and use it to participate in BNB's Launchpool, providing incentives to platform trading users.
Currently, lisUSD is the first meme-friendly stablecoin project on the BNB Chain. As of the time of writing, lisUSD has established liquidity pools with memes such as TST and CHEEMS on various DEXs in the BNB Chain ecosystem.
Since the popularity of the DeFi+CeFi concept, the BNB Chain and Binance trading platform have been a good combination of these two features. If participating in emerging meme platforms is not your first choice and you want to find higher yield opportunities, Lista DAO also has further asset yield innovations in DeFi.
slisBNB + Pendle: Expanding BNB's Yield Channels
On January 28 of this year, Lista DAO announced the official launch of slisBNB and clisBNB on Pendle, introducing products such as PT-clisBNB, YT-clisBNB, and SY Pendle LP. It is worth mentioning that in the BSC ecosystem, there are not many projects listed on Pendle, and most products are stablecoin-centric, yet Lista DAO was the first to bring clisBNB into this market. Through Pendle, BNB can not only capture the ecosystem's own yield but also leverage DeFi tools and market fluctuations to achieve a more flexible yield strategy, further unlocking the asset's potential.
One of the key innovations of Lista DAO on the BNB Chain is to bring higher capital efficiency to BNB holders through lending + liquidity staking. Traditional BNB staking methods often require locking BNB in a specific wallet, but the collaboration between Lista DAO and Pendle has broken this limitation, driving the release of BNB on-chain liquidity and the realization of multiple yields.
Before delving into the specific strategies of the Lista DAO and Pendle collaboration, let's first review the products related to Lista DAO and BNB. In addition to the platform's stablecoin lisUSD, there are also liquidity staking vouchers slisBNB and collateralized debt vouchers clisBNB.
The former allows users to stake BNB on the Lista DAO platform to receive slisBNB tokens. Holders not only enjoy BNB staking rewards but can also participate in activities like Binance Launchpool to earn additional rewards. Furthermore, slisBNB can provide liquidity on DeFi platforms to earn trading fees and liquidity mining rewards.
The latter allows users to collateralize BNB to receive non-transferable tokens at a 1:1 ratio, designed to represent the user's BNB collateral asset. Users holding clisBNB can borrow lisUSD stablecoin and participate in activities like Binance Launchpool to earn multiple rewards.
Related Reading: "Building the BNBFi Ecosystem, How Lista DAO Became a Profit Harvester for BNB Holders"
Pendle is a DeFi tool that maximizes asset yields, and the collaboration between Lista DAO, which maximizes BNB returns in the BNB ecosystem, is undoubtedly another income boost for BNB holders. During the collaboration, slisBNB can be minted into clisBNB on Pendle, which can then be split into PT (Principal Token) and YT (Yield Token). This way, users holding slisBNB can maximize their BNB returns on Pendle.
If you are a low-risk-averse BNB holder, you can choose the PT strategy, buy PT with the slisBNB staked in Lista, and exchange it back to slisBNB at a 1:1 ratio upon maturity on April 25th. This is equivalent to a coin-based principal-protected product, with the current yield rate at around 15%.
However, if you are a believer in BNB's long-term gains and can withstand some risk, you can choose the YT strategy. Holding 1 YT clisBNB is equivalent to depositing 1 slisBNB on Lista as collateral. In other words, buying YT is a bet that BNB's future yield will be higher than it is now because it represents all the earnings of slisBNB during that period, including Binance Launchpool rewards, Megadrop, HODLer airdrops, and BNB staking rewards.
If Binance lists multiple Launchpool tokens within a period, the gains for YT holders can be substantial. However, the clisBNB mechanism on Pendle is the same as holding regular clisBNB, and investors are only eligible for Launchpool rewards if they continuously hold YT/LP throughout the entire Binance Launchpool event. It's important to note that this strategy carries the risk of loss if the returns are lower than the purchase cost.
Another way to earn rewards is by participating in Pendle LP. By providing liquidity in the clisBNB pool on the Pendle platform, combining PT and slisBNB, investors can earn corresponding rewards based on the pool's APY fluctuation. Pendle also offers additional PENDLE rewards for the clisBNB liquidity pool. This means that investors opting for this method can receive PT rewards, all slisBNB earnings, trading fee shares, and PENDLE incentives simultaneously.
Unlike the traditional BNB staking method, the partnership between Lista DAO and Pendle eliminates the requirement for users to hold slisBNB in a Binance Web3 wallet. Users can operate in any supported crypto wallet, enhancing asset flexibility and liquidity. Whether seeking low-risk fixed income or hoping for higher returns through market volatility, investors can find a suitable investment strategy in this innovative product.
SolvBTC.BNB: Empowering BNBFi with Bitcoin Standard
The All in BNBFi strategy is not limited to the collaboration with Pendle. Within the BNB Chain ecosystem, Lista DAO is actively promoting the development of BNBFi, aiming to enhance the yield potential of BNB assets and build cross-chain bridges to enable high-quality assets from other chains to flow into the BNB Chain. This expansion aims to strengthen the depth and breadth of the ecosystem, further solidifying BNB's position as a DeFi value hub.
At the end of February, Solv Protocol, in collaboration with Lista DAO, Astherus, Venus Protocol, and PancakeSwap, launched the SolvBTC.BNB BTC yield product. This is a yield-generating Bitcoin liquidity staking token that allows BTC holders to earn rewards pegged to BTC, participate in the Binance Launchpool, and receive DeFi rewards within the BNB Chain ecosystem, including incentives from Lista DAO, Astherus Points, Solv Season 2 XP Boost, among other projects.
Bitcoin holders deposit their BTC into Solv Protocol, convert it to solvBTC, Solv Protocol then deposits SOLVbtc into Venus, borrows BNB, and the borrowed BNB goes to Lista DAO, where it is converted to slisBNB, and finally, slisBNB is deployed to the Astherus platform.
Currently, the APY of SolvBTC.BNB has reached 8%. This yield not only comes from the Binance Launchpool, Megadrop, and HODLer rewards but more importantly, it is because Solv Protocol, through Lista DAO, pledges the borrowed BNB as slisBNB, that allows these BNB to participate in various incentive programs within the BNB ecosystem, thereby further increasing the overall yield. On February 27, the first phase of the SolvBTC.BNB quota was fully subscribed, demonstrating the market's recognition of this innovative yield model.
If combining BNB and Penlde's product is an innovation at the yield channel level, then the latest collaboration between Lista DAO and Solv Protocol in the Bitcoin yield product SolvBTC.BNB adds another layer of potential yield on a Bitcoin basis to BNB, bringing cross-asset and cross-chain assets into BNBFi.
Conclusion
From empowering the Meme ecosystem with lisUSD, to the deep integration of slisBNB with Pendle, and to bridging the Bitcoin yield channel with SolvBTC.BNB, Lista DAO is continuously expanding the boundaries of the BNB ecosystem.
Last December, Lista DAO launched its BNB staking node, with over 82,000 BNB currently participating in staking. Not only has it improved user earnings through optimized staking strategies and node service fee sharing mechanisms—delegators can receive on-chain base staking rewards and also share additional service fee splits generated by node operation. In the future, Lista DAO will further optimize node service incentives through a dynamic fee rate model, an on-chain reputation system, and income-enhancing tools to help node operators improve competitiveness and expand revenue streams.
As the only DeFi project within the Binance ecosystem eligible for direct participation in Launchpool, Megadrop, and HODLer Airdrop, Lista DAO has become a key pillar of BNB Chain's innovation and yield growth. Whether you are looking to boost BNB's capital efficiency through DeFi tools or expand your revenue streams through meme trends, cross-chain bridges, and Bitcoin-backed products, Lista DAO provides its users with a comprehensive set of strategies.
The development of BNBFi is just beginning, and with a "All in BNBFi" determination, Lista DAO is taking CeDeFi, cross-chain liquidity, and on-chain yield optimization to new heights. As the Binance ecosystem gradually expands into a broader DeFi landscape, Lista DAO is undoubtedly at the forefront of this trend, crafting a new growth story for the BNB ecosystem's future.
Lista DAO Official Website｜Official Twitter
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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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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.
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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
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