How Binance’s woes boosted Coinbase shares

Journalist

Posted: November 30, 2023

• Coinbase’s role as the dominant custodian in spot Bitcoin ETF applications was a major factor.
• The troubles at Binance’s end benefited Coinbase.

An upheaval was caused in the Binance universe as a result of former CEO Changpeng Zhao’s indictment and subsequent exit last week.

However, as things pan out in a competitive market, a completely opposite effect was observed on the second-largest crypto exchange Coinbase [COIN].

The company’s stock, listed on the NASDAQ exchange, jumped 25% since the Binance news broke, AMBCrypto spotted through Google Finance.

Until the last close, the $30 billion-valued crypto stock traded at $119.77, the highest since April 2022, and more than tripling in value year-to-date (YTD).

Source: Google Finance

Coinbase hogs limelight through custody services

While Binance’s troubles were indeed a major catalyst for Coinbase shares’ upswing, the Web3 company’s own accomplishments in 2023 cannot be disregarded. Perhaps the biggest of them all – its role as the dominant custodian in nearly all of the spot Bitcoin ETF applications.

Indeed, TradFi giants including Blackrock, ARK, and Franklin Templeton, opted for Coinbase’s institutional custody services to store billions worth of Bitcoins. These assets, as we know, would help in aligning the ETF shares with the prevailing price of Bitcoin.

Will Coinbase’s fortunes soar?

A pro-Coinbase user on X, with the pseudonym RoninBull, predicted a huge profit potential for Coinbase through its ETF custody services.

Coinbase is the custodian for 9/12 BTC ETFs. Let’s say half of BTC ends up in ETFs. At 100k BTC will have a 2T market cap. That’s ~1T assets custodied by $COIN. They charge 10 basis points /month which is 1B of profit /month. That alone equals the same annual profit as $TSLA pic.twitter.com/MMK13Dswc1

— RoninBull (@RoninBul) November 28, 2023

The user assumes nearly half of all Bitcoins in circulation moving to Coinbase once all the spot ETFs are functional. They then made a bold price prediction of $100,000 for BTC.

At this rate, assets worth nearly $11 trillion would be with Coinbase. Citing Coinbase’s own custody fee structure, RoninBull expected a profit of nearly a billion per month for the company.

Prominent voices back COIN

Many users were not convinced with the numbers. However, they agreed somewhat with the idea behind the hypothesis.

Prominent attorney and a keen observer of crypto-related developments in the U.S. John E Deaton quoted RoninBull’s post and said, “It is difficult to not be bullish on COIN.”

Scrolling through Deaton’s X posts, AMBCrypto found more endorsements for Coinbase. “I think it’s a screaming buy under $150,” he said in response to a crypto investor’s bet that COIN will reach $200.