The digital asset economy’s early growth was driven primarily by speculative trading. It still is today.
And while the industry has been trying to break away from its reliance on that growth engine, the crypto exchange Coinbase’s fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings announced Thursday (Feb. 12) show that there still is some way to go.
Coinbase reported a fourth-quarter loss of $667 million, driven largely by markdowns tied to its crypto investment portfolio and strategic holding. Fourth quarter revenue sank an estimated 20%.
The latest results snapped the crypto exchange’s profitability streak of eight quarters.
But executives on Thursday’s earnings call chose to highlight the crypto platform’s diversification plays, stressing that the digital asset industry’s next phase will be tied to payments, financing and programmable financial services, particularly as bitcoin drops to record lows and trading volumes cool.
“There’s no company in the world that wants to pay more money for moving their money,” said Brian Armstrong, co-founder and CEO, highlighting Coinbase’s push into both stablecoins and institutionally driven products.
“The Everything Exchange is working,” added Armstrong. “In 2025, we drove all-time highs across our products: Coinbase One subscriptions reached ~1 million, trading volume and market share doubled, and USDC held on platform reached an all-time high.”
See also: Robinhood Feels Chill as Crypto Slump Cools Revenue
Coinbase Wants to Build Its Way Out
Despite the disappointing quarter for Coinbase and the fact that its stock is down around 40% year-to-date, activity on the platform expanded sharply during the full year. Per the company’s financials, total trading volume reached $5.2 trillion in 2025, up 156% year over year, while Coinbase’s share of global crypto trading doubled to 6.4%.
But despite leadership stressing that they see the current bear market as an opportunity to build and buy on the cheap, executives also returned repeatedly to the fact that Coinbase does not intend to continue to see its revenues rise and fall with crypto market sentiment. Central to Coinbase’s growth strategy is what leadership described as an “asset accumulation flywheel” of earning customer trust, attracting assets onto the platform, and layering services around those balances.
That’s the foundational concept behind Armstrong’s “everything exchange.”
To that end, assets held on Coinbase have tripled over the past three years, and the company estimates that more than 12% of global crypto was stored on its platform in 2025. This concentration allows Coinbase to monetize through staking, lending and payments rather than relying solely on transaction fees.
Stablecoins, particularly Circle’s USDC, have become foundational to Coinbase’s ecosystem. Per its financials, average USDC balances held within Coinbase products have reached $17.8 billion.
See also: While US Debates Stablecoin Yield, Europe and Asia Set Clearer Rules
Still, reinventing a trading platform as a financial ecosystem is capital intensive. Coinbase’s operating expenses rose 35% year over year to $5.7 billion, driven by acquisitions, regulatory investments, marketing programs, and infrastructure development tied to its expanded vision.
And while Coinbase views the current phase of the crypto cycle as a build period rather than a harvest period, as regulatory clarity improves globally, competitors are also evolving. Traditional exchanges, FinTech companies, and decentralized platforms are all expanding into overlapping territory, from tokenized assets to crypto custody and derivatives.
The PYMNTS Intelligence and Citi report “Chain Reaction: Regulatory Clarity as the Catalyst for Blockchain Adoption” found that blockchain’s next leap will be shaped by regulation; that evolving guidance is beginning to create the foundations for safe, scalable blockchain adoption; and that implementation challenges continue to complicate progress.
In the United States, however, lawmaker gridlock around key stablecoin yield questions has left crypto market legislation in limbo. The debate has reached such a crescendo that Citi analysts have noted the growing chance that the CLARITY Act’s passage could be delayed beyond 2026, although there is also a chance it may still pass this year.
Coinbase has played a background role in the debate, with Armstrong frequently heading to Washington.
