Coinbase generated $2.5B of net revenue and $840M of net income in Q4, the company reported. At year-end they had 11.4M “Monthly Transacting Users.”
Coinbase said that strong growth in the “utilization” of crypto played a role in their success. “Prominent use cases [of crypto] included non fungible tokens (NFTs), decentralized finance (DeFi) adoption, decentralized applications, play to earn gaming, and metaverse related opportunities,” it stated in the annual report. NFT sales reportedly reached $20B in 2021 compared to just $100M in 2020.
“Going forward, we plan to add to our product suite by investing in products like Coinbase Wallet and Coinbase NFT, as well as international expansion, which we believe will generate more MTUs,” they added.
If you had RadioShack on your 2021 DeFi bingo card, congratulations, you’ve won. The company announced that its “mission is to be the first protocol to bridge the gap in mainstream usage of DeFi” and it plans to do this, apparently, by launching a swap.
RadioShack wants to compete with the likes of Uniswap, a smart-contract-based crypto exchange where users can “swap” tokens without having to register on a formal exchange like Coinbase.
The business is a gold mine, according to RadioShack.
“The concept of a swap stands out first and foremost as the place of low-hanging fruit – fruit that is spinning off incredible levels of net profit,” the company said. “Profit not just from speculation like Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, but ones born out of trading fees. Some existing swaps like Uniswap or Sushiswap reportedly are doing $1-$7 million net profit per day! They are the current profitable forces of nature in the DeFi world.”
Use of a “swap” is how tokens issued by the ConstitutionDAO crowdfunding saga leaked out into the publicly tradeable marketplace, for example. What was supposed to be a “governance token” to vote on where a copy of the United States Constitution would be held, instead turned into a tradeable novelty asset (like pogs or baseball cards) with a soaring value, all because of decentralized swapping. More than $100 million worth of the novelty governance tokens stemming from the failed bid to buy the Constitution were traded just in the last 24 hours alone, according to Coinmarketcap.com.
“RadioShack DeFi is focused on the early majority,” the company said. “It will become the first to market with a 100 year old brand name that’s recognized in virtually all 190+ countries in the world.”
The People’s NFT was born today. A successor DAO to the famed ConstitutionDAO, enthusiasts hoping to continue the mission of acquiring historical artifacts are joining the new discord dedicated to the cause. According to an announcement there, the purpose “is to drive cDAO’s spirit forward.”
A twitter account has also been set up to provide updates on the movement. Its very first tweet acknowledged its origins.
If the attempted merger between PayPal and Pinterest left you scratching your head, a comment coming out of Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong could offer another clue about the future of online photo sharing platforms.
“There was a question there about the social experience, and I think that’s something that Coinbase can bring to the table here,” Armstrong said during the company’s Q3 earnings call in regards to the upcoming release of their NFT platform. “You know, we’d like to make the Coinbase NFT a little bit more like, you know, Instagram as opposed to say an auction like eBay or something like that.”
Armstrong continued by saying that their NFT platform will allow people to follow their favorite artist and creators, while offering a “feed of content that is populated from those people you follow.”
“In addition, you can go in there and buy an NFT if you really like it and kind of showcase in your own social profile,” Armstrong said.
Coinbase was mostly mum about its crypto competitors except to say that “there are companies like PayPal and Square and Robinhood and traditional financial institutions who are entering and we believe that that’s a huge validation of the whole space.”
Coinbase generated $2.5B of net revenue and $840M of net income in Q4, the company reported. At year-end they had 11.4M “Monthly Transacting Users.”
