How to Design True RWA Liquidity? Core Analysis of the RWA Ecosystem Capital Framework

By: blockbeats|2025/02/24 06:15:03
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Original Title: "How to Design True RWA Liquidity? - A Core Analysis of the RWA Ecosystem Capital Framework"
Original Author: Yekai (WeChat/Twitter: YekaiMeta)

The topic of RWA liquidity was supposed to be discussed earlier, but due to an earlier Chinese New Year this year and the upcoming consensus conference in Hong Kong right after, it was delayed. Many RWA institutions and projects have visited in the past two weeks, especially many RWA projects that do not conform to the Hong Kong-compliant RWA model. Most of them are based on the concept of RWA assets in an offshore token model. Some of them, upon closer inspection, do not even consider professional RWA design; they simply issue tokens and focus on pumping the market cap. Some projects are also borrowing from the Ondo model, using RWA underlying assets plus a second-layer of secondary tokens based on the returns of the underlying assets, hoping that the secondary tokens will always appreciate. However, in reality, Ondo was an early project with high whale control, and the secondary token model is unlikely to achieve the so-called "to the moon" scenario.

Why is RWA Liquidity Key?

Amidst the global asset tokenization wave, RWA (Real World Assets) has bridged the gap between traditional finance and the cryptocurrency market. However, true RWA liquidity is not just about on-chain assets; once the assets are tokenized on-chain, funds will come. It involves the dynamic matching of the fund side and asset side, efficient capital turnover, and arbitrage design across borders and domains.

The core issue is: How to strike a balance between the long-term nature of traditional assets and the high turnover demand of the digital currency market?

Enterprise Pain Points: Why is Liquidity Hard to Achieve?

1. Long Capital Cycles of Traditional Assets

Medium to long-term assets (such as bonds, real estate) lock up capital, making rapid turnover difficult and weakening liquidity.

2. High Volatility and Yields in the Digital Currency Market

Old Man wants to participate in cryptocurrency market arbitrage but is constrained by traditional capital compliance and investment rules.

3. Cross-Domain Fund Barriers

Old Money cannot directly enter the digital currency market and requires a bridge to ensure efficient and compliant liquidity.

What is True RWA Liquidity?

1. From Traditional Assets to Tokenized Stablecoins

Pattern: The Hong Kong RWA is currently only issuing bonds. The key is to “Accept-Mint-Borrow” on the basis of RWA bonds. Accept refers to accepting bonded collateral, mint refers to minting Layer 2 protocol tokens, and borrow refers to borrowing liquidity.

RWA liquidity aims to transform medium- to long-term traditional assets or traditional financial products into short-term cash flow cryptographic instruments (such as stablecoins or tokens) through asset tokenization, supporting rapid turnover. Through rapid turnover, benefits such as arbitrage or rollover fees are obtained, thus stably covering the returns of traditional medium- to long-term products.

Example: Through the tokenization of traditional assets like US Treasury bonds, pledging to generate Ondo-like protocol tokens or stablecoins, engaging in high-turnover arbitrage in the digital currency market, thereby providing stable income coverage for medium- to long-term asset returns.

2. Cross-Border Arbitrage and Capital Bridge

Pattern: Funds flow from the traditional capital market into the cryptocurrency field, obtaining cryptocurrency liquidity through staking, and participating in high-yield operations such as lending and providing liquidity.

An alignment mismatch of short- and long-term funds, cross-chain operations, and cross-border arbitrage form a complete capital flow path, from fiat to synthetic protocol tokens, stablecoins, and then to efficient turnover in pools.

Example: Cheap money from traditional funds is converted to U (USDT/USDC) to earn high returns in the cryptocurrency field (USDT returns fluctuate around 10-20%), which is very similar to traditional internal and external loan guarantees, short- and long-term mismatches, and cross-border arbitrage.

Example: Traditional funds from funds or family offices interested in investing in trading cryptocurrencies but cannot directly hold cryptocurrencies, so they allocate traditional financial market products like US Treasury bonds, then pledge these financial assets through RWA to generate USDT liquidity. This liquidity can also be placed in USDT management or exchanges to earn interest and provide loans, with a timely reserve/collateral and position dynamic Oracle mechanism.

3. Efficient Pool Design

Pattern: The core of a pool is the dual drive of traditional funds and crypto funds, combining market value management with traffic attractiveness. Through efficient pool design, a high-turnover short-term fund pool can be provided to support reinvestment, rapid withdrawal, and achieve sustainable liquidity through dynamic asset pricing.

Example: Liquidity Yield Token LYT, in the XTP exchange liquidity pool or a common fund flow pool, design an actively managed open-ended fund RWA, converting liquidity investment yield into yield token LYT.

Example: AI Arbitrage Agent, where there's arbitrage, there's liquidity, RWA not only has buyers and sellers but also liquidity providers, arbitrage investors, and cross-chain arbitrage funds. Through AI Arbitrage Agent robots, achieve RWA asset issuance and liquidity arbitrage trading, and automatically implement compounding investment, etc.

Core Reference of RWA Ecosystem Capital Framework

One of the key aspects of RWA liquidity also lies in the construction of RWA ecosystem capital, aiming to transform RWA into the best exit channel for industry capital in the world of cryptocurrency assets through "fundraising, investment management, and exit."

The benchmark for industrial ecosystem capital is the Capitaland model. Capitaland has strong industrial brand operation and management capabilities in commercial real estate, while Prologis has strengths in logistics warehousing. Through the industrial capital investment banking model, it achieves fundraising, management, and exit, with a phased layout including: private equity funds + industrial management operations + IPO + REITs, ultimately forming an industrial capital cycle. For example, Capitaland has dozens of private equity funds (Funds) corresponding to asset portfolios at different stages and releases some equity/shares to insurers, pension funds, etc.; it has 2 listed companies in Singapore: Capitaland Group and Capitaland Investment; it has 6 Singapore REITs publicly listed and traded.

Listed companies and REITs can both issue additional shares for mergers and acquisitions, serving as one of the exit channels for asset portfolios, or the asset portfolio can be separately listed. Even for asset allocation strategy adjustments, there are very flexible operational methods, such as in 2021, Capitaland packaged 6 domestic Raffles City projects, released some equity to Ping An Insurance for a cash inflow of over 30 billion, and then made large-scale acquisitions of first-tier city data centers and other new types of digital economy assets.

RWA is the core of industrial capital entering the world of cryptocurrency assets, and different stages of RWA assets and models, from RWA underlying asset portfolios to RWA funds, RWA trusts, R-share linked capital markets, etc., will also form an RWA ecosystem capital framework (as shown in the diagram). Currently, RWA is still relatively early-stage, and a mature RWA ecosystem capital for fundraising, investment management, and exit will provide ample and diversified liquidity for RWA assets.

How to Design True RWA Liquidity? Core Analysis of the RWA Ecosystem Capital Framework

(Diagram of RWA Ecosystem Capital Framework)

Ecosystem Capital Framework: Core Levels of RWA Liquidity

Layer One: Asset Side

The underlying asset pool includes bonds, real estate, commodities, etc., tokenized in the form of RWA assets on-chain, providing a controllable and trusted asset base, supporting dynamic pricing and distributed asset pool management.

Layer Two: Fund Side

Traditional Funds: Funds raised through primary markets (such as Hong Kong, Singapore) to allocate to RWA tokenized assets.

Crypto Funds: Liquidity from the digital currency market, participating in lending and trading by pledging BTC or stablecoins.

With different types of funds, a fund pool composition needs to be formed to determine if it is incremental funding and incremental users.

Layer Three: Liquidity and Arbitrage

Design Logic: Primarily focusing on high liquidity short-term products, supporting rollover reinvestment and fast exits to increase fund turnover rate.

Cross-Border Liquidity: From primary markets in Hong Kong or Singapore to secondary markets in Dubai or the US ATS, then entering DeFi liquidity pools to form a global fund flow loop.

Layer Four: Industry Scenarios and Upgrades

Industry Stablecoins: Backed by RWA assets, issuing industry stablecoins for industry payments and financial scenarios to promote industry stablecoin liquidity.

Scenario-Driven: Introducing industry scenarios such as payments, settlements, and financing applications on the industry chain, integrating deeply with RWA for industry upgrades. Traditional supply chain and procurement tendering within the industry chain can be transformed into subscriptions and active participation in industry RWA.

Therefore, let's summarize the key opportunities for RWA liquidity

1. Fund Bridge: Integration of Traditional and Crypto

Through RWA tokenization, enabling traditional funds to enter the crypto market while ensuring fund compliance and controllability.

2. High-Yield Arbitrage: Cross-Border and Cross-Chain Opportunities

Capture arbitrage opportunities across different regions, markets, and asset classes to optimize fund returns.

3. Dynamic Liquidity: Combining short-term products with long-term stability

By utilizing short-term fund turnover to support the returns of mid-to-long-term assets, efficient fund utilization is achieved. Dynamic liquidity comes from turnover: short-term products, rolling reinvestment, and quick exits.

Key Points of RWA Liquidity Project Implementation

A successful RWA token project must combine traditional capital market liquidity with crypto capital market liquidity and rely on the synergy of Fund+Market Maker. Traditional capital market liquidity relies on market value management and R-share linkage, while the crypto market can introduce more active funds through memecoin flow. To maximize project returns, a seniority structure can be designed to clearly define fund realization channels and exit mechanisms, while leveraging an experienced team to build a secondary market+Market Maker+community operation model to achieve a perfect integration of liquidity and market depth on leading exchanges.

RWA Asset Pledging and Lending Model must ensure the rationality of Staking and margins, with BTC as the preferred collateral for pledging, providing not only a stable RWA asset annual return (such as 6-8%) but also allowing the pledged collateral token to be used for Defi lending, bringing higher turnover returns, potentially reaching 8-10%. Through a reasonable seniority structure, the overall yield may even exceed 18-20%, providing investors with high returns.

Platform tokens and community incentives need to be closely integrated with the market narrative of the vertical track and elevate engagement through the power of the community retail. Increase mining incentives, deep liquidity pools, and leverage community management and meme culture to guide community participation. Additionally, combined with the operation of the secondary market and trading team, market liquidity and participation are effectively increased to ensure project growth.

RWA aims to achieve the “Primary to Secondary, Secondary to Protocol” strategy, which involves transforming primary private placement into secondary market transactions (volume boosting), and then further converting secondary market transactions into Layer 2 protocol token transactions. This approach drives the valuation of the protocol platform and token market cap, ultimately incentivizing and covering the returns of primary market participants through the premium of platform tokens and protocol tokens.

Summary: From Liquidity to Ecosystem Loop

True RWA liquidity lies not only in the efficient circulation of funds but also in bridging traditional finance with the crypto market, as well as the asset side with the fund side. Through asset tokenization, liquidity pool design, cross-domain arbitrage, and industry upgrades, RWA liquidity injects new vitality into the global capital markets, creating multi-dimensional growth opportunities for enterprises and investors. Want to ride this wave? Take action and let RWA help you usher in a new era of capital efficiency!

#ARAW Always RWA Always Win!

By 2025, the RWA market will rapidly establish its position amidst rapid growth. In the new year, Kai Ge will officially start recruiting disciples for mentorship. Young talents aspiring toward the RWA direction are welcome to seize the lead, reply “Disciple Class” in the official account to join the preparatory group.

WeChat cannot answer questions individually. Following the core disciple class, there will be a partner class and a listed company research camp. If you have needs or questions, bring them to the classroom for serious study, interactive discussions, and scenario simulations. Add WeChat YekaiMeta to join the RWA discussion group.

This article is a submission and does not represent the views of BlockBeats.

Original Article Link

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Never Underestimate the Significance of the US Stablecoin 'Infrastructure Bill'

Original Title: "Never Underestimate the Significance of the US Stablecoin 'Genius Act'"Original Author: 0xTodd, Partner at Nothing Research


If the US stablecoin bill, the "GENIUS Act," passes smoothly this time, its significance will be tremendous. I even think it's significant enough to enter the top five in Crypto history.



Although abbreviated as the GENIUS Act, which translates directly to the Genius Act, it is actually the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins, which translates to "Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Dollar Stablecoins."


The proposal is lengthy, with several key points summarized for everyone:


· Mandatory 1:1 Full Asset Backing: Assets include cash, demand deposits, and short-term US Treasuries. At the same time, misappropriation and rehypothecation are strictly prohibited.


· High-Frequency Disclosure: Reserve reports must be published at least monthly, introducing external audits.


· Licensing Requirement: Once the circulating market cap of the issuer's stablecoin exceeds $100 billion, it must transition into the federal regulatory system within a specified timeframe, adopting banking-grade regulation.


· Introduction of Custody: The custodian of the stablecoin and its reserve assets must be a regulated qualified financial institution.


· Clear Definition as a Payment Medium: The bill explicitly defines stablecoin as a new type of payment medium, primarily regulated by the banking regulatory system, rather than restricted by the securities or commodities regulatory system.


· Embracing Existing Stablecoins: A maximum 18-month grace period after the bill's enactment, aimed at encouraging existing stablecoin issuers (such as USDT, USDC, etc.) to promptly obtain licenses or become compliant.


After finishing the main content, let's talk about the significance of this matter with an excited heart.


Over the years, when others asked, "After working in the Crypto industry for 16 years, what application have you created?"


In the future, you can confidently tell others—Stablecoins.


First, Clearing Concerns is a Prerequisite


Some people have held opposing views. In the past, people's impression of stablecoins was that they were an opaque black box. Every few months, there would be FUD — whether Tether's assets were frozen or Circle had a significant black hole deficit.


In fact, if you think about it, Tether easily rakes in billions of dollars a year just from the interest on those underlying government bonds. Circle, slightly less, also made a $1.7 billion profit last year.


They basically made money while standing there. From a motivational standpoint, they have no malicious intentions. In fact, they are the most eager for compliance.


Now, this opaque black box will become a transparent white box.


In the past, the only complaint was that Tether's funds might have been frozen by the United States. Now, they will be directly placed into U.S. compliant custodial institutions, with high-frequency disclosures, so you can rest assured.


【No need to worry about a rug pull】 is such a huge advantage—I think especially all Crypto people understand this.


Second, Mastering the Standard is Very Important


Stablecoins were once almost on the verge of being overtaken by CBDCs. In any country, if a central bank digital currency really exists, it is highly likely not built on a blockchain, at most it is built on some internal central bank consortium chain, which to be honest, is meaningless.


When CBDCs were at their peak, that was the most dangerous time for stablecoins.


If CBDCs had become a reality back then, stablecoins today would have been relentlessly suppressed into a dark corner, and blockchain would only be able to play a minimal role.


The remaining half-dead stablecoins would even have to learn the standards of central bank digital currencies, completely relinquishing their standard-setting power.


And now, stablecoins have won (or are about to).


Instead, everyone should learn the 【Blockchain + Token】 standard.


Nowadays, many blockchains actually have no meaningful applications on top, only stablecoin transfers. For example, with Aptos, the only scenario I use Aptos for is transfers between Binance and OKX.


And now, stablecoins will be legislated, what does that mean?


That's right, blockchain will become the only standard.


In the future, every stablecoin user will be the first to learn how to use a wallet.


As an aside, I actually think Ethereum's concerted push for EIP-7702 is quite forward-thinking. While other chains are all about memes, thank you Ethereum for sticking to account abstraction.



EIP-7702 is about Account Abstraction, which can support, for example:


· Social Account Registration Wallet

· Paying GAS with Native Coin

· And more


This paves the way for future new users to heavily use stablecoins, solving the last-mile problem.


Third, Deposit Enters a New Era


Furthermore, once stablecoins receive legislative support, deposits and withdrawals will become even easier.


Let's imagine a scenario: previously, hindered by the gray nature of stablecoins, but after the bill passes, many traditional brokerages can support stablecoins themselves. The money from a US stock investor can be converted into stablecoins in minutes and instantly deposited into Coinbase. Believe it or not.



Let's imagine another scenario: if the brilliant bill smoothly passes through the House of Representatives, next, you will see:


Due to the extremely lucrative nature of this trading, existing stablecoin leaders and newly entering traditional giants will crazily start promoting their stablecoin products.


And an outsider, due to these promotions, will start using stablecoins. And then one day, after finding out that the wallet account has been created, will explore Bitcoin inside. Is mining Bitcoin difficult?


Stablecoins are a huge Trojan horse. The moment you start using stablecoins, you unwittingly step half a foot into the Crypto world.


Fourth, Conclusion


As a large reservoir for digesting US debt, although stablecoins cannot directly absorb debt, they at least provide ammunition for the US debt secondary market. These functions are quite important, and slowly, stablecoins are becoming a part of the US debt market's body. Therefore, once the US legislation is passed and experiences the benefits, there is no turning back.


And, we are also confident that stablecoins are indeed one of the great innovations in our industry. People who have used stablecoins will find it hard to return to the traditional cash-banking system.


Once the bill is passed, users can't go back. In the future, concerns are about to be resolved, standards will be mastered, and the era of large deposits seems to be on the horizon.


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$COIN Joins S&P 500, but Coinbase Isn't Celebrating

On May 13, S&P Dow Jones Indices announced that Coinbase would officially replace Discover Financial Services in the S&P 500 on May 19. While other companies like Block and MicroStrategy, closely tied to Bitcoin, were already part of the S&P 500, Coinbase became the first cryptocurrency exchange whose primary business is in the index. This also signifies that cryptocurrency is gradually moving from the fringes to the mainstream in the U.S.



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Coincidentally, Discover Financial Services, being replaced by Coinbase, can also be considered the "Coinbase" of the previous payment era. Discover is a U.S.-based digital banking and payment services company headquartered in Illinois, founded in 1960. Its payment network, Discover Network, is the fourth largest payment network apart from Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.


In April, after the approval of the acquisition of Discover by the sixth-largest U.S. bank, Capital One, this well-established digital banking company of over 60 years smoothly handed over its S&P 500 "seat" to this emerging cryptocurrency "bank." This unexpected coincidence also portrayed the handover between the new and old eras in Coinbase's entry into the S&P 500, resembling a relay race scene. However, this relay baton also brought Coinbase's accumulated "external troubles and internal strife" to a tipping point.


Side Effects of ETFs


Over the past decade, cryptocurrency exchanges have been the most stable "profit machines." They play a role in providing liquidity to the entire industry and rely on trading fees to sustain their operations. However, with the comprehensive rollout of ETF products in the U.S. market, this profit model is facing unprecedented challenges. As the leader in the "American stack," with over 80% of its business coming from the U.S., Coinbase is most affected by this.



Starting from the approval of Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs, traditional financial capital has significantly onboarded users and funds that originally belonged to exchanges in a more cost-effective, compliant, and transparent manner. The transaction fee revenue of cryptocurrency exchanges has started to decline, and this trend may further intensify in the coming months.


According to Coinbase's 2024 Q4 financial report, the platform's total trading revenue was $417 million, a 45% year-on-year decrease. The contribution of BTC and ETH's trading revenue dropped from 65% in the same period last year to less than 50%.


This decline is not a result of a decrease in market enthusiasm. In fact, since the approval of the Bitcoin ETF in January 2024, the inflow of BTC into the U.S. market has continued to reach new highs, with asset management giants like BlackRock and Fidelity rapidly expanding their management scale. Data shows that BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) alone has surpassed $17 billion in assets under management. As of mid-May 2025, the cumulative net inflow of 11 major institutional Bitcoin spot ETFs on the market has exceeded $41.5 billion, with a total net asset value of $1214.69 billion, accounting for approximately 5.91% of the total Bitcoin market capitalization.


Chart showing the trend of net outflows for Grayscale among the 11 institutions


Institutional investors and some retail investors are shifting towards ETF products, partly due to compliance and tax considerations. On one hand, ETFs have much lower trading costs compared to cryptocurrency exchanges. While Coinbase's spot trading fee rate varies annually in a tiered manner but averages around 1.49%, for example, the management fee for IBIT ETF is only 0.25%, and the majority of ETF institution fees fluctuate around 0.15% to 0.25%.



In other words, the more rational users are, the more likely they are to move from exchanges to ETF products, especially for investors aiming for long-term holdings.


According to multiple sources, several institutions, including VanEck and Grayscale, have submitted applications to the SEC for a Solana (SOL) ETF, with some institutions also planning to submit an XRP ETF proposal. Once approved, this may trigger a new round of fund migration. According to a report submitted by Coinbase to the SEC, as of April, the platform's trading revenue from XRP and Solana accounted for 18% and 10%, nearly one-third of the platform's fee revenue.



However, the Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs passed in 2024 also reduced the fees for these two tokens on Coinbase from 30% and 15% to 26% and 10%, respectively. If the SOL and XRP ETFs are approved, it will further undermine the core fee revenue of exchanges like Coinbase.


The expansion of ETF products is gradually weakening the financial intermediary status of cryptocurrency exchanges. From their original roles as matchmakers and clearers to now gradually becoming mere "on-ramps and off-ramps" for funds, exchanges are seeing their marginal value squeezed by ETFs.


Robinhood Takes a Stand, Traditional Brokerages Join the Fray


On May 12, 2025, SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins gave a keynote speech at the Tokenization and Cryptocurrency Working Group roundtable. The theme of his speech revolved around "It is a new day at the SEC," where he indicated that the SEC would not approach enforcement and regulation the same way as before but would instead pave the way for cryptocurrency assets in the U.S. market.



With signs of cryptocurrency compliance such as the SEC's "NEW DAY" declaration, an increasing number of traditional brokerages are attempting to enter the cryptocurrency industry. One of the most representative cases is the well-known U.S. brokerage Robinhood, which began expanding its crypto business in 2018. By the time of its IPO in 2021, Robinhood's crypto business revenue accounted for over 50% of the company, with a significant boost from the Dogecoin "moonshot" promoted by Musk.


In Q1 2025 earnings report, Robinhood showcased strong growth, especially in revenue from cryptocurrency and options trading. Fueled by Trump's Memecoin, cryptocurrency-related revenue reached $250 million, nearly doubling year-over-year. Consequently, Robinhood Gold subscription users reached 3.5 million, a 90% increase from the previous year, with the rapid growth of Robinhood Gold providing the company with a stable source of income.



Meanwhile, RobinHood is actively pursuing acquisitions in the cryptocurrency space. In 2024, it announced a $2 billion acquisition of the long-standing European cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp. Additionally, Canada's largest cryptocurrency CEX, WonderFi, which recently went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange, also announced its integration with RobinHood Crypto. After obtaining virtual asset licenses in the UK, Canada, Singapore, and other markets, RobinHood has taken a proactive approach in the compliant cryptocurrency trading market.



Furthermore, an increasing number of brokerage firms are exploring the same path. Futu Securities, Tiger Brokers, and others are also dipping their toes into cryptocurrency trading, with some having applied for or obtained the VA license from the Hong Kong SFC. Although their user bases are currently small, traditional brokerages have a natural advantage in user trust, regulatory licenses, and low fee structures. This could pose a threat to native cryptocurrency platforms in the future.



User Data Breach: Is Coinbase Still Secure?


In April 2025, security researchers discovered that some Coinbase user data was leaked on the dark web. While the platform initially responded by attributing it to a "technical misinformation," it still raised concerns among users regarding its security and privacy protection. Just two days before Dow Jones Indexes announced Coinbase's addition to the S&P 500 Index, on May 11, 2025, Coinbase received an email from an unknown threat actor claiming to have obtained customer account information and internal documents, demanding a $20 million ransom to keep the data private. Subsequent investigations confirmed the data breach.


Cybercriminals obtained the data by bribing overseas customer service agents and support staff, mainly in "non-U.S. regions such as India." These agents abused their access to Coinbase's internal customer support system and stole customer data. As early as February this year, blockchain detective ZachXBT revealed on X platform that between December 2024 and January 2025, Coinbase users lost over $65 million to social engineering scams, with the actual amount potentially higher.


Among the victims was a well-known figure, 67-year-old Ed Suman, an established artist in the art world for nearly two decades, having been involved in the creation of artworks such as Jeff Koons' "Balloon Dog" sculpture. Earlier this year, he fell victim to an impersonation scam involving fake Coinbase customer support, resulting in a loss of over $2 million in cryptocurrency. ZachXBT critiqued Coinbase for its inadequate handling of such scams, noting that other major exchanges have not faced similar issues and recommending Coinbase to enhance its security measures.


Amidst a series of ongoing social engineering incidents, although there has not been any impact on user assets at the technical level so far, it has raised concerns among many retail and institutional investors. Especially institutions holding massive assets on Coinbase. Just considering the U.S. BTC ETF institutions, as of mid-May 2025, they collectively hold nearly 840,000 BTC, and 75% of these are custodied by Coinbase. If we price BTC at $100,000, this amount reaches a staggering $63 billion, which is equivalent to the nominal GDP of two Iceland in the year 2024.


Visualization: ChatGPT, Source: Farside


In addition, Coinbase Custody also serves over 300 institutional clients, including hedge funds, family offices, pension funds, and endowments. As of the Q1 2025 financial report, Coinbase's total assets under management (including institutional and retail clients) reached $404 billion. The specific amount of institutional custodied assets was not explicitly disclosed in the latest report, but it should still be over 50% based on the Q4 2024 report.


Visualization: ChatGPT


Once this security barrier is breached, not only could the rate of user attrition far exceed expectations, but more importantly, institutional trust in it would undermine the foundation of its business. Therefore, after a hacking event, Coinbase's stock price plummeted significantly.


CEXs are All in Self-Rescue Mode


Facing a decline in spot trading fee revenue, Coinbase is also accelerating its transformation, attempting to find growth opportunities in derivatives and emerging assets. Coinbase acquired a stake in the options platform Deribit at the end of 2024 and announced the official launch of perpetual contract products in 2025. This acquisition fills in Coinbase's gap in options trading and its relatively small global market share.



Deribit has a strong presence in non-U.S. markets, especially in Asia and Europe. The acquisition has enabled Coinbase to gain a dominant position in bitcoin and ethereum options trading on Deribit, accounting for approximately 80% of the global options trading volume, with daily trading volume remaining above $2 billion.


Meanwhile, 80-90% of Deribit's customer base consists of institutional investors, with their professionalism and liquidity in the Bitcoin and Ethereum options market highly favored by institutions. Coinbase's compliance advantage, coupled with its already robust institutional ecosystem, makes it even more suitable. By using institutions as an entry point, it can face the squeeze from giants like Binance and OKX in the derivatives market.



Facing a similar dilemma is Kraken, which is attempting to replicate Binance Futures' model in non-U.S. markets. Since the derivatives market relies more on professional users, fee rates are relatively higher and stickiness is stronger, making it a significant source of revenue for exchanges. In the first half of 2025, Kraken completed the acquisition of TradeStation Crypto and a futures exchange, aiming to build a complete derivatives trading ecosystem to hedge the risk of declining spot transaction fee income.


With the surge of Memecoin in 2024, Binance, OKX, and various CEX platforms began massively listing small-market-cap, highly volatile tokens to activate active trading users. Due to the wealth effect and trading activity of Memecoins, Coinbase was also forced to join the battle, successively listing popular tokens from the Solana ecosystem such as BOOK OF MEME and Dogwifhat. Although these coins are controversial, they are frequently traded, with fee rates several times higher than mainstream coins, serving as a "blood-boosting" method for spot trading.


However, due to its status as a publicly traded company, this practice is a riskier endeavor for Coinbase. Even in the current crypto-friendly environment, the SEC is still investigating whether tokens like SOL, ADA, and SAND constitute securities.


In addition to the forced transformation strategies carried out by the aforementioned CEXs, they are also starting to lay out RWAs and the most talked-about stablecoin payment fields, such as the PYUSD launched through a collaboration between Coinbase and Paypal, Coinbase's support for the Euro stablecoin EURC by Circle that complies with EU MiCA regulatory requirements, or the USD1 launched through a collaboration between Binance and WIFL. In the increasingly crowded trading field, many CEXs have shifted their focus from just the trading market to the application field.


The golden age of transaction fees has quietly ended, and the second half of the crypto exchange platform game has silently begun.


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