GM. This is Milk Road, the daily newsletter that’s like a highlight reel for crypto. All the dunks, none of the timeouts.
Here’s what we’ve got for you today:
- ✍️ What’s carrying Coinbase now?
- 🎙️ The Milk Road Show: Wall Street Won't Touch DeFi Until This Happens.
- 🍪 BitMine is 48.6K ETH from its cap.
1M views on Crypto Twitter costs about $60K through a KOL agency. Okara customers have done it for about $5K. Plan your KOL campaign for free.
Prices as of 2:00 p.m. ET. Powered by CoinGecko.
WHAT’S CARRYING COINBASE NOW? 🏋️
Coinbase dropped its Q3 numbers last Thursday.
… the same afternoon Binance got hacked for ~$6.3B, so you'd be forgiven for missing them.
But they’re worth a proper look, because they show where Coinbase makes its money these days (and where it doesn't).
Let’s start with the ugly stuff:
- Total revenue: $1.22B (down 35% from a year ago).
- Trading revenue: $590M (down 44%).
- Trading fees from everyday users: $450M (down 47%).
When prices go sideways → people trade less → fewer trades means fewer fees.
Yes, Coinbase still posted $719M in profit, up 66% from last year.
… but $715M of that came from the crypto Coinbase holds as an investment going up in value.
The business itself made $62M in operating profit (what's left after paying to run the company), down from $481M a year ago - meaning its investments did the earning, while the exchange itself barely turned a profit.
Zoom out and the trend isn't pretty either:
Revenue has now fallen four quarters in a row, and sits ~46% below its Q4 2024 peak.
But tucked inside those numbers is one part of Coinbase that barely flinched…
1M VIEWS ON CRYPTO TWITTER. FOR $5,000.
On Crypto Twitter, your launch is only as big as the KOLs who share it.
Book them through an agency and 1M views costs around $60,000. Okara customers have done it for about $5,000.*
Okara’s Influencer Agent books the KOLs for you:
- Tell it what you’re launching and your budget
- Approve a shortlist from 300+ X creators
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You never send a DM or chase an invoice. Pricing is $129/month + 10% of what you spend.
Plan your KOL campaign for free. No credit card needed.
*Based on Okara customer campaigns.
WHAT’S CARRYING COINBASE NOW? (P2) 🏋️
The part that didn’t flinch was everything Coinbase files under "subscription and services":
Stablecoin income, staking rewards for helping run blockchains, its paid Coinbase One membership and more.
It brought in $570M last quarter, which works out to 49% of Coinbase's net revenue (up from 41% a year ago).
And the biggest piece of it, by a mile, is stablecoins.
Here's how Coinbase makes money on them:
Circle parks the dollars backing USDC in short-term government bonds (Treasuries), earns interest, and hands Coinbase a big cut of it.
Coinbase says it captured roughly half of all USDC economics over the past year - and the more USDC there is sitting inside Coinbase's apps, the bigger that cut gets.
Average USDC held in Coinbase products hit a record $22B in Q3 (up 49% from a year ago, and the 14th record quarter in a row).
Put trading and stablecoins side by side, and you get two very different years:
Stablecoin revenue still slipped 5% because interest rates came down over the year, so each dollar of USDC earned less (which more than cancelled out the bigger balances).
Coinbase expects higher average rates to help that number in Q4.
Not everyone thinks stablecoins can carry the whole company though.
Morgan Stanley downgraded COIN to underweight (Wall Street speak for "expect it to lag") on Monday, cut its price target from $258 to $120, and slashed its 2027 revenue forecast by 28%.
Q4 isn't off to a faster start either… Coinbase clocked ~$165M of trading revenue through Oct 25, about the same pace as Q3, and that was before the Binance hack hit.
COIN closed Monday at ~$138, a fresh 52-week low and down ~39% this year.
Kyle (our Head of Research) is taking the other side. He added to his COIN position at ~$140 last Friday, betting Coinbase comes out of the Binance hack as the exchange people trust most.
If trading holds its October pace and subscriptions land in the middle of guidance (the ~$550M-$630M range Coinbase gave for Q4), Coinbase's two halves will be roughly neck and neck this quarter.
That's bad news if you own COIN for the next trading frenzy, and better news if you want a business that still gets paid whether or not people are trading.
Kyle raised cash back in September so he'd have ammo for dips like this one.
Since the selloff, he's been adding to COIN and GLXY, and his note on the latest GLXY buy sums up his thinking:
"These are always the hardest times to buy but for those with conviction they also become the best times."
To see every move he makes (and why) as it happens, try Milk Road PRO for a buck for 7 days.
SEE WHAT INSIDERS OWN
The biggest investors in the world leave a paper trail…
…but it's scattered across SEC filings, political disclosures and block explorers.
So we pulled it all into one place: Insider Portfolios, now live on Milk Road.
Track Vitalik Buterin, Warren Buffett, Nvidia, Nancy Pelosi and more:
- See every position they hold, plus what they've added or sold lately.
- Click any coin or stock to see which insiders own it.
- Get an email the next time they make a move.
The best part? Your account is already set up.
To turn on free Insider Portfolio alerts, simply sign in and click the bell notification icon on your preferred Insider page.
👉 Sign in here to access Insider Portfolio alerts.
BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪
Bigger loan, lower rate. Ledn’s APR drops as your loan size goes up. Rates vary by jurisdiction.*
BitMine is 48.6K ETH from its cap: It owns 6.06M ETH, 4.96% of supply, and chairman Tom Lee has called its 5% goal a "hard cap."
Aave freezes its $136M tBTC market: Threshold paused bitcoin redemptions, causing the swap from tBTC back to BTC to be shut down since Friday.
Solana vs. Ethereum on DEXs: Solana handled $723B through September vs. Ethereum's $379B, but adding Base and Arbitrum lifts Ethereum's side to $698B.
*this is sponsored content.
