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From Everything App to Everything Exchange: Coinbase Recalibrates After $667M Q4 Loss

Coinbase has as soon as once more shifted its messaging. In July 2025, Coinbase proudly launched the Base App, a one-stop platform the builders referred to because the “the whole lot app.” It was meant to redefine how customers interacted on-line, turning into the one feed the place individuals might submit updates, message pals, transfer cash, and launch mini-apps for gaming, sports activities betting or buying and selling.

Following the corporate’s Q4 outcomes printed final week, Coinbase is now on the way in which to turning into the “the whole lot change,” merging conventional finance with on-chain crypto, permitting 24/7 buying and selling of shares, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), prediction markets, and cryptocurrencies from a single interface.

The platform’s determination to pivot its positioning, and most significantly, scrap its creator rewards program, which Coinbase launched as a means to incentivize social engagement, was met with fairly some criticism from on-line communities. In addition, final week’s earnings season underscored simply how a lot strain the change is beneath at this second, marking a web lack of roughly $667 million.

Coinbase’s Q4 loss & the rise of the “Everything Exchange”

For Coinbase, the fourth quarter of 2025 marked a pointy reversal in momentum. The firm reported its first quarterly loss since returning to profitability in 2023, posting a web lack of round $667 million.

During the corporate’s earnings call, CFO Alesia Haas attributed the loss largely to non-cash objects, together with a $127 million unrealized loss on Coinbase’s crypto funding portfolio and a $395 million loss on strategic investments, amongst them its stake in Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin. While subscription and providers income provided some cushion, it was not sufficient to soften buying and selling volumes in what has been a broader crypto market downturn.

Against that backdrop, the pivot towards the “the whole lot change” reads like a structural recalibration. By emphasizing multi-asset buying and selling, together with 24/7 entry to cryptocurrencies, shares and ETFs, Coinbase seems to be leaning additional into monetary infrastructure. That contains prediction markets, which Coinbase launched in all 50 states on the finish of January.

Diversification contains prediction markets

“We’ve efficiently diversified the enterprise the place stablecoins, subscription and providers income, and now buying and selling of different asset courses like shares, prediction markets, and commodities means our income is much less correlated to crypto value fluctuations,” mentioned Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong.

While the Coinbase predictions product continues to be new, Armstrong says early indications are optimistic.

“Stocks and prediction markets are pure extensions of our core enterprise, offering a transparent path to rising product stickiness
and income technology, and it’s working. Early suggestions from our clients may be very optimistic, and we see quite a few customers crossing over to commerce commodities and equities alongside their crypto. We hit all-time highs in derivatives quantity and income in Q4, and some weeks in the past, we rolled out prediction markets to 100% of our clients.”

The strategic shift to an all-inclusive buying and selling platform additionally positions the corporate extra squarely alongside retail brokerage platforms akin to Robinhood, which also saw a crypto revenue fall of 38% year-over-year within the fourth quarter of 2025.

However, whereas Robinhood’s crypto enterprise represents one phase inside a diversified brokerage model, Coinbase’s core id and income base stay way more tightly sure to digital asset buying and selling. In a bear market, that distinction issues.

Community in backlash

Across X, customers criticized Base’s management and product path, arguing that the staff prioritized hype over coherent on-chain experimentation. Some customers questioned the logic of sunsetting the social layer totally.

“Farcaster does social buying and selling so nicely. If baseapp doesn’t embody the social facet, the place do miniapps slot in, and the way can or not it’s the “Everything app,” consumer @basedjunkie mentioned on Twitter.

The criticism displays a broader pressure inside Web3, whether or not platforms ought to prioritize experimentation and creator monetization or concentrate on constructing sustainable monetary rails.

A former participant in Base’s creator rewards program informed DeFi Rate the shift felt deflating, even when comprehensible from a enterprise perspective.

“I used to be upset once I relaunched the app and located it was now not ‘social/creator-first’ and extra of a substitute app for Coinbase Wallet,” X consumer @TalonDragon000 mentioned. “Business-wise, I get it. Their path will preserve the lights on on the workplace. Innovation and creator-wise, it appears like they put it on maintain for now. Maybe they are going to come again with a brand new creator marketing campaign once they regain a few of their misplaced funds from the current market dip.”

Marketing vs monetization

The backlash additionally gained traction when customers in contrast Base’s creator payouts to Coinbase’s broader advertising and marketing spend.

During this yr’s Super Bowl, Coinbase allegedly spent $14 million for a karaoke-style business that reportedly generated round 20 million impressions and crashed the Coinbase website.

Armstrong referred to as the Super Bowl an “overwhelming occasion” the place being observed is virtually unimaginable, not to mention getting individuals enthusiastic about crypto.

Armstrong’s response reveals a basic strategic divide. For management, visibility, and consumer acquisition throughout a market downturn might symbolize the best leverage use of capital, which might additionally tie into the corporate’s broader push to grow to be the “the whole lot change.”

Coinbase is a publicly traded firm navigating a bear market. In a slower buying and selling setting, capturing consideration at scale, even at vital value, may be framed as long-term buyer acquisition.

The submit From Everything App to Everything Exchange: Coinbase Recalibrates After $667M Q4 Loss appeared first on DeFi Rate.

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