[tom_walters]

I think any company exploring ways to improve the financial system should be given plenty of space to do so, but I think the fundamental issue facing Coinbase, and all other crypto-based firms is: when will we see mainstream adoption of crypto as something other than asset speculation?

Or, is speculation the only use-case for crypto? Sure we've had example use-cases for crypto as a value store and exchange medium, but outside the bleeding-edge of technology, and away from the VC fever dream (let alone con-artist central), where does crypto fit into society?

There are major incumbent forces all the way up to government that are keen to control the rise of this technology so it's clearly not an easy task, but for the likes of Coinbase to survive I think we need to see real value in using the things you actually trade on their exchange. Unfortunately right now it seems that Coinbase is a company predicated on the assumption that “crypto is going to become the main way to exchange value at some point in the future”.

Companies powered by hype and VC speculation invariably collapse as markets move on, so if I were investing in them I'd be really keen to have them allocate the majority of their resources at pushing crypto adoption into non-investment-based use-cases, which is to say, banks having large crypto teams is much less important than average people actively using crypto for goods and services (if that's to be the dominant use-case for crypto.)

[nxmnxm99]

With most technologies, I find the heuristic of "how will this technology help improve your average suburban consumer's life, or those serving them" helpful. Internet? Great. Smartphones? Yep. Electric Vehicles? Kind of.

Crypto has never had a real answer to that question. The opportunities of crypto are things like you owning your money instead of the bank, fast transaction speeds and anonymity - nobody but a tiny percentage of people give a crap about any of this. Certainly not enough to supplant the most prevalent piece of infrastructure in modern society, the fiat.

[juujian]

Don't forget that it's not only a "when we will see" but also a "whether we will see". Changes the economics significantly for investors.

[lottin]

As far as I can see, the business model of cryptocurrency exchanges revolves around the speculation use-case, since they profit from matching buyers and sellers of cryptocurrencies. If cryptocurrencies worked as advertised (i.e. as a peer-to-peer payments system), I don't think there would be much use for exchanges.