Coinbase as a business, at least one that is traded publicly, never made sense during off cycles for crypto at their current scale. It makes sense in that it'll still be a business, and can certainly still make money, but it's extremely seasonal. Coinbase during a crypto bear market might be "worth" 10-100x less than what it might be worth in a bull market.

As such, I imagine they'll have these wild swings every 4-6 years. I think many people don't realize just how incredibly stagnate and boring crypto is when it's not consuming every part of everyone's online identity. The bad news is that for companies like Coinbase they essentially have to drastically downsize every few years. The good news is that with proper planning, they can really make the profits from a bull market last.

As far as the Coinbase marketplace, it may have “seasons” but the margins from fees will probably shrink over time regardless. A recent episode from Crypto Critics’ Corner ( https://anchor.fm/cryptocriticscorner/episodes/Cryptocurrenc... ) covered some of the headwinds facing Coinbase. Coinbase (at least the CEO) claims this is not a problem so it will be interesting.

Crypto is the future of finance in bull markets

Its a total scam in bear markets

That’s pretty much the sentiment across the board

I do wonder how SoftBank investing $680M into SoRare at the height of the NFT boom is going to work out. If SoRareStats is correct, they did 170Eth of auction volume in 24 hours. If they have the same fees as OpenSea, that’s roughly $8,000 in daily revenue.

> I do wonder how SoftBank investing $680M into SoRare at the height of the NFT boom is going to work out.

This only goes one way, and that way is down.

Yep. OpenSea, too, raised funding at 13B valuation right at the peak of the NFT mania

I don’t understand how VCs work. I was deep in the NFT world at that time and outside of the influencers on Twitter, every single trader I know was just in it to dump NFTs on someone else. And everyone knew that it wasn’t sustainable at all.

How can VCs look at something like this, abandon all common sense and buy in right at the top of a mania phase?

Yeah I've thought about this a lot too. My only guess is that these VCs never really felt the pain from the previous cycle collapses.

I made and subsequently lost a very large sum of money from 2015 to 2018. This happened because I bought into the ICO craze and after seeing 1000x gains I saw almost all of it evaporate. So to me, NFTs reeked of the same odor.

I was smart enough this cycle to stick with projects that made sense to me. NFTs didn't make sense, and even though I saw people making money on them, I knew the risk was too high. I think another learning point for me was letting go of romanticizing crypto as a technology and embracing it for what it truly is, which is gambling.

I don't think crypto is the future of anything other than online gambling and speculation. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's the reality.

VCs seem stuck in that romantic phase coupled with a lack of technical understanding. I think after they get burned this cycle they'll be less likely to invest in the next. They'll have the experience to know.

In hindsight, that May 2021 was a good thing. Taught me how much these coins can collapse. I did much better at securing profits in the second half of this run

Coinbase doesn't need to care about the value of crypto, it makes money on fees when people buy or sell against USD. All it should care about is the traded volumes, and they don't necessarily have to be a lot lower in a bear market.

Volume dies completely in bear markets

We’re not even in a proper bear market and its already collapsing

Just see dex trading volume metrics or OpenSea volume data on Dune.com - a much better indicator of the state of the crypto markets since you can’t hide on chain data

> Coinbase doesn't need to care about the value of crypto, it makes money on fees when people buy or sell against USD

Coinbase ran a gambling business like an exchange business. That's their mistake. The guys who knew they were running unregulated slot machines are doing fine.

Volume barely exists during a bear market. Attention is the currency by which crypto lives and dies. Even negative attention is attention. A bear market is the lack of attention. It has nothing to do with the macro price of any coin.

The problem is, there are a number of other exchanges out there, and they are going to need to get competitive on fees. They aren't the only game in town now and other exchanges are advertising heavily.

But they almost always are a lot lower during bear cycles.

The value of crypto drives interest and thus trading volumes.

Don't see why that should be the case. Unless there are massive swings in the number of trades, setting a flat rate for transactions should insulate them from the actual prices of crypto assets.

> Unless there are massive swings in the number of trades,

Precisely. Holders HODL during bear markets. Traders go bankrupt. New money stays on the sidelines. Everyone else forgets about crypto for a few years.

Volume goes down, fees collected go down

Crypto trade volume collapses catastrophically in bear markets

This whole premise assumes that “crypto” will be a thing long enough to be cyclical.

We're past a decade already. I think gambling is pretty popular. So I expect it to only increase in popularity until it inevitability gets regulated into the dirt.

I expect that it will continue to be the preferred mechanism for paying criminals. It genuinely improves on the experience for both criminal and victim vs alternatives like wire transfers and cash. There is a decently large market for paying criminals (illegally but also legally, eg ransomware), so some base level can be expected to continue.

Law enforcement and private surveillance companies are currently investing a ton of effort into using public blockchains (which is most of them) to unmask participants in crypto transactions. At the same time, they're putting more pressure on Coinbase and friends to do aggressive KYC, and Congress keeps considering bills that would effectively outlaw anonymous crypto purchases. It's not going to be the safest way to collect ransoms for long, if it even is today.

It's mostly stupid criminals who accept crypto since it's much more easy to trace than cash. Privacy coins are a completely different matter tho.

This is why I follow Carmen San Diego's example and only accept looted treasures as compensation for my crimes.

Well in case that it won't be a thing long enough, then there will be no coinbase in current business model, so I guess its correct strategy.

I'd guess the "no politics at work" thing probably helped reduce the number of layoffs coming, if anything.

When it can be used as the reason a company succeeds, it should be used as the reason the company isn't doing well.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, to them, I'd imagine from the tone of the article that spawned that rule.

I agree - that's actually what I meant. I think my comment is being taken differently than how I meant to write it, but such is life.

it's all good man, I think you're alright. just another stranger on the internet like the rest of us.

yeah, it also probably means that the ones that stayed are getting laid off, but the ones that left are probably in a better situation

I'm surprised they even announced it publicly, it can do nothing but make them look like a terrible place to go apply for work if they do things like yank offers. Although I guess since they aren't hiring for anything in the near future it doesn't matter but I bet this perception will persist well beyond when they start hiring again.

I wonder if this announcement was pressure from management and the board to make some public announcement for shareholders that Coinbase is doing something, anything, to cut costs and weather the crypto and tech downturn.

And for sure, if you work as a recruiter for Coinbase and still have a job... time to start tapping your network for other opportunities.

I think it's a PR CYA move. It was being picked up on social media and they had to say something

They could have just stopped new hiring, and not rescinded any offers.

The fact they felt they had to means layoffs are right around the corner, and they're in a very bad spot.