Coinbase Pivot: “Everything App” Launch Sparks After-Hours Bounce as Analysts Clash on $340 Target
Following market closing on Wednesday, Coinbase Global, Inc. (NASDAQ: COIN) created a stir by announcing its "System Update 2025," which
Quick overview
- Coinbase announced its 'System Update 2025,' introducing stock trading and prediction markets as part of its evolution into an 'everything exchange.'
- The company aims to diversify its income sources and compete with platforms like Robinhood in the fintech market.
- Despite a consensus Buy rating from analysts, there are concerns that new prediction markets may negatively impact existing cryptocurrency trading revenue.
- Coinbase is also expanding into India, having received regulatory approval for a minority stake in CoinDCX, a leading local cryptocurrency platform.
Following market closing on Wednesday, Coinbase Global, Inc. (NASDAQ: COIN) created a stir by announcing its “System Update 2025,” which opened prediction and stock trading markets as the cryptocurrency exchange rapidly moves beyond its origins as a digital asset exchange to become a “everything exchange.”
The moves, made during the company’s year-end conference, represent a strategic shift for the cryptocurrency behemoth as it scrambles to diversify its sources of income and take on platforms like Robinhood head-to-head in the increasingly congested fintech market.
Major Product Launches Signal Coinbase’s Evolution
Coinbase’s head of consumer and commercial products, Max Branzburg, verified that stock trading is now operational on the platform, characterizing it as a significant step toward enabling 24-hour worldwide trading of equities and exchange-traded funds powered by cryptocurrency infrastructure.
Through a collaboration with Kalshi, the company also introduced prediction markets; deployment will start right away, with U.S. availability to follow. Furthermore, Coinbase revealed plans to launch 24/7 perpetual contracts in early 2026, enabling users to trade equities and cryptocurrencies with up to 50 times leverage.
These products expand upon the foundation established in July 2025 when Coinbase redesigned its wallet software as a “everything app” that included chat capabilities, social networks, and other applications.
Wall Street Divided on Strategic Direction
The product demonstration coincides with widely differing opinions from financial analysts. With a $340 price target and a Buy rating, Deutsche Bank began covering Coinbase on Wednesday, characterizing it as a developing “on-chain platform” as opposed to just a cryptocurrency exchange.
But skepticism endures. Citing worries that prediction markets would cut into current cryptocurrency trading revenue rather than fostering additive growth, Mizuho recently lowered its price objective from $320 to $280. Because of the uncertainties surrounding product economics, the company notably excluded upside from the prediction market debut in its financial forecasts.
With an average price target of $383.46, which represents a substantial increase from current levels, 27 analysts covering Coinbase have a consensus Buy rating, according to StockAnalysis data. However, the target range, which varies from $230 to $510, highlights the strong disagreement on the company’s long-term course.
Coinbase (COIN) Stock Performance Reflects Crypto Market Volatility
With a volume of over 8.2 million shares, Coinbase’s stock fluctuated between $243.70 and $259.55 before closing Wednesday at $244.19, down 3.3%. After hours, the stock made a slight recovery, rising about 1.5% to $247.85.
After bitcoin’s steep slide from its October 2025 peak of $126,223, which at one point represented a 36% decline, the decline indicates broader concern in cryptocurrency markets. Because transaction income and user activity are strongly correlated with changes in the price and volatility of digital assets, Coinbase is still quite susceptible to the mood of the cryptocurrency market.
Competitive and Regulatory Landscape Intensifies
As part of a larger plan that combines trading, artificial intelligence, and betting-style activities, Coinbase is directly competing with Robinhood by expanding into prediction markets and stock trading.
The regulatory landscape is still complicated. In response to increased scrutiny from state regulators, Coinbase joined Kalshi and Crypto.com to launch the Coalition for Prediction Markets, a lobbying group. Concerns over investor protections and the transfer of shareholder rights to tokenized wrappers are brought up by tokenized stocks, another possible growth area that was discussed in pre-event coverage.
India Expansion Moves Forward
Separately, Coinbase’s purchase of a minority interest in CoinDCX, one of the top cryptocurrency platforms in India, was authorized by Indian regulators. The agreement was approved by the Competition Commission of India on Tuesday, strengthening Coinbase’s relationship with the exchange, which as of July reportedly brought in $141 million annually.
The permission comes after Coinbase, which suspended operations in September 2023, plans to resume operations in India with fiat on-ramps in 2026. India is a huge growth area for the cryptocurrency business, with an estimated 100 million consumers.
Industry Perspectives on Strategic Shift
The CEO of Glider, a portfolio manager supported by Coinbase, Brian Huang, questioned whether the business is differentiating itself enough. Huang stated that “Coinbase is starting to look a lot more like Robinhood,” implying that the exchange ought to adopt additional on-chain innovations like tokenized equities that are constructed entirely on blockchain technology.
Huang noted Coinbase’s advantages as assets become more tokenized and contended that, despite similarities to rivals, Coinbase is still cheap with a market capitalization of about $66 billion compared to Robinhood’s $104 billion valuation.
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