Category: Business

Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) exchange posted $1.2 billion in second-quarter revenue for the period ended June 30, below the $1.3 billion analysts expected in an LSEG (LSE: LSEG) survey. Its loss reached $1.36 per share, far worse than the 17-cent loss Wall Street had penciled in. The company’s stock was immediately sold off following this news, resulting in more than a 7% decline after hours.

The quarter was the company’s third straight miss on both sales and profit forecasts. Coinbase lost $359.5 million, compared with a $1.43 billion profit one year earlier. Earnings went from $5.14 per share last year to a $1.36 loss this time. Revenue also fell from $1.5 billion to $1.2 billion.

Coinbase builds subscription products while weak trading keeps hurting revenue

Bitcoin spent much of the second quarter stuck inside a narrow price band, as the market was healthier than it had been during the first quarter, but spot bitcoin ETFs faced a long run of withdrawals.

Coinbase then saw reduced action in the two largest areas of its operations, as the company earned $599 million from transaction revenue and earned another $555 million through subscriptions and services.

All of these figures fell below estimates and were lower compared to the previous year. The share of subscriptions remained larger compared to the total amount of revenues. For a number of years now, Coinbase has been seeking to reduce its dependency on trading commissions.

Revenue from stablecoins totaled $292 million, a decrease of $17 million compared to the same quarter in 2025. The expectation from StreetAccount was for $327.2 million. The disappointment resulted from management’s continued emphasis on services such as $USDC, Coinbase One, Base, and others outside spot trading.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said Coinbase reached a new record for its share of crypto trading and argued that the company can operate through any market. In the earnings release, he said, “Coinbase is no longer a bet just on the price of bitcoin.” Brian added, “All of financial services are getting updated by crypto, whether that’s trading or payments or lending,” and called Coinbase the best-placed company to supply that infrastructure.

During the earnings call, Brian Jung of Jung Media asked why Coinbase appeared to be reconnecting with retail and crypto-native users after Brian appeared on Market Bubble and Cobie took control of the Base App.

Coinbase’s Brian said, “Yeah, so we have lots of different groups that like to use Coinbase, and build on top of the Base Chain is even probably a broader group. And so, you know, we try to make an effort to connect with all of them. It’s really a pretty diverse group of people that use Coinbase, right? There’s the largest, like, GSIB banks in the world are building on our infrastructure.”

Brian and Alesia detail how Coinbase plans to serve AI agents and grow $USDC

Austin Hankwitz of Grit Capital asked whether AI agents would care about Coinbase’s reputation or simply choose the cheapest and fastest network. He noted that more than 90% of agent-driven stablecoin transaction volume settles on Base. Brian said price would matter, but not by itself. “AI agents are probably going to care about a similar set of things that humans would,” he said.

As Brian put it, Base provides settlements for less than a cent within less than a second. Additionally, Brian noted that automated clients will require other factors, such as security, liquidity, legality, reliability, and uptime. He compared that choice with selecting Amazon’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) AWS for cloud infrastructure. “Trust will continue to be important in that world,” he said, adding that Coinbase plans to welcome AI agents as customers.

Eric Pan of Ericnomics asked where Coinbase expects growth now that bitcoin-linked transaction revenue has fallen from more than half of company sales to 12%.

Brian said, “At any given time in trading, there’s always something that’s up and something that’s down. That’s part of the Everything Exchange strategy. You’ve got to have all the shelves stocked so you have the inventory when that thing trends that week. And then on the non-trading fee side with subscription and services, we’ve seen good growth of that over the past years as well.”

Coinbase wants enough products available so customers can trade whatever becomes popular at a given time. He said the wider menu should spread trading-fee income across more assets and products. Subscription and service fees, meanwhile, are meant to make company revenue easier to forecast.

Chief Financial Officer Alesia Haas said paid Coinbase One memberships reached a record during the quarter, even as crypto trading volume fell. “We saw an all-time high in paid Coinbase One subscribers this quarter,” she said. Alesia said those members tend to use more of the platform’s products, giving Coinbase another way to increase customer activity without depending only on trading.

Ken Worthing of JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) asked whether Coinbase’s deal with Hyperliquid gives large $USDC holders too much of the stablecoin’s economics.

Alesia said institutions can hold $USDC on Coinbase and earn rewards, while retail users can do the same through Coinbase One. She said Hyperliquid was treated like any other customer, though its role in perpetual futures and market-making made the relationship important.

Alesia said Coinbase was willing to share revenue because placing $USDC deeper inside Hyperliquid could increase liquidity, usage, and adoption across the wider network.

Brian said the company would keep funding that push. He said $USDC already ranks first for stablecoin transaction volume and first among regulated stablecoins, but remains second to Tether by market value when less-regulated products are included.

• Bitcoin has historically entered bearish phases approximately one year prior to each US legislative election.
• A Binance Research report notes that the asset dropped an average of 56% during completed midterm cycles since 2014.
• Previous presidential elections showed a different behavior, with sharp rallies following candidates’ victories.

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Joao Wedson recently published an analysis asserting that the 2026 US midterm elections could mark the beginning of a Bitcoin price breakout. His analysis links market cycles to the US political calendar after recording repetitive patterns in previous periods.

Bitcoin vs. U.S. Midterm Elections🇺🇸

Bitcoin entered a bear market roughly one year before every U.S. midterm election.

After the midterms, Bitcoin began a prolonged bull market.

Every time a president won the election, Bitcoin rallied strongly. However, shortly after the… pic.twitter.com/cbxNfwInum

— Joao Wedson (@joao_wedson) July 29, 2026

Historical patterns in the US electoral calendar

The correlation between cryptocurrency performance and political events shows that the asset tends to adjust its price before legislative votes. According to research shared by the Alphractal founder in a post on X, Bitcoin typically enters a bear cycle one year before midterm elections, only to begin a prolonged upward phase once the election process concludes.

In certain historical cycles, the price bottom consolidated days before the vote, while in other cases it was recorded shortly after election day.

On the other hand, presidential elections showed a different dynamic. The analyzed documentation points out that the asset has recorded marked increases following the confirmation of an election winner, approaching a cycle peak shortly after the presidential inauguration.

As an example of this trend, the analyst cited XRP’s behavior. Following Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 election, the token began an uptrend that culminated in a local peak on January 20, 2025, the date of the presidential inauguration.

The data presented aligns with Binance Research findings published earlier this year. According to the firm’s report, Bitcoin experienced pricing difficulties during midterm election years, only to regain ground once political uncertainty faded.

The Binance Research report details that the asset dropped an average close to 56% during completed midterm cycles since 2014. In contrast, during the year following those elections, the market recorded an average return of approximately 54%.

Despite these historical comparisons, the analysis warns about the need to exercise caution when interpreting recent market readings. Wedson’s previous observations indicate that an isolated price rally does not, on its own, guarantee a structural shift in the trend.

To confirm a cycle transition toward a bullish phase, the source points out that clear signals of capitulation, operational deleveraging, and the influx of new capital from short-term investors are required.

Macroeconomic factors and current market scenario

The macroeconomic context and the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy continue to exert influence over the digital market’s evolution. Three months out from the elections, Bitcoin’s price is hovering near $64,000. That amount represents a distance of nearly 50% from $126,000, the asset’s all-time high recorded in October 2025.

CoinGecko data indicates that over the last 7 days, the pioneer cryptocurrency experienced a pullback of around 2.5%. However, the asset maintains a cumulative gain of nearly 8% over the past month.

This behavior occurs in an environment where the US Federal Reserve decided to hold the benchmark interest rate in the 3.50% to 3.75% range. Global liquidity conditions and the performance of economic indicators in the months leading up to the vote will be decisive in validating whether history repeats itself.

The next milestone for verifying these metrics will be the occurrence of the legislative elections in November 2026, at which point the market will observe whether the trend reversal projected by analysts consolidates.

Despite the US Federal Reserve keeping interest rates unchanged, its continued “hawkish” stance on monetary policy could continue to put pressure on cryptocurrency markets. Expert analyses suggest that the messages conveyed by the Fed after its July 29th interest rate decision could limit the short-term performance of risky assets, particularly Bitcoin.

At its latest meeting, the Fed kept its policy interest rate unchanged, maintaining its firm stance on combating inflation. This approach indicates that the central bank is unwilling to allow inflation to rise above its target level, even at the cost of slowing economic growth. The analysis states that this scenario is among the most unfavorable macroeconomic environments for crypto assets in the current market cycle.

It was noted that tight monetary policy could reduce liquidity in the financial system and limit investors’ risk appetite. Specifically, it was stated that cryptocurrency positions financed through leveraged transactions or low-cost funding strategies would face higher costs, potentially putting downward pressure on Bitcoin.

Institutional investors may also adopt a more defensive strategy in their portfolios if hawkish Fed rhetoric continues. This could increase selling pressure on risky asset classes such as stocks and cryptocurrencies. It is noted that if the shift towards safer investment instruments like bonds and cash accelerates, capital inflows into crypto markets may slow down.

However, the analyses also noted that Bitcoin has so far demonstrated relative resilience in the face of a hawkish monetary policy environment. It was stated that the digital asset has maintained strong support levels despite significant recent macroeconomic developments, while markets continue to closely monitor the Fed’s future actions.

However, experts warn that new and unexpectedly harsh tightening messages from the Fed could create new volatility in the markets. In such a scenario, Bitcoin and other crypto assets could face additional price pressure in the short term.

*This is not investment advice.

Ask most people how a crypto price gets set and they will describe spot trading: buyers and sellers meet on an exchange, and the last trade prints the price. But that has not been how it actually works for years as far as bitcoin, ether and the broader crypto markets are concerned.

Perpetual futures, also called perpetual swaps or “perps” for short, are leverage-friendly contracts that never expire, and they now account for roughly 93% of all crypto futures volume, with daily perp volume routinely running larger than the spot market underneath it.

A traditional futures contract has a settlement date, which is when it comes due and its price is forced to meet the spot price of the thing it tracks, also called the underlying. But a perpetual has no such date and can be held indefinitely (by paying a cost known as ‘funding rate,’ which varies daily).

A body of market-microstructure work has asked which venue “discovers” a bitcoin price first, meaning where new information enters the market before it shows up anywhere else. The answer has repeatedly come back pointing at derivatives.

A study in the Journal of Financial Markets by Carol Alexander and co-authors found that perpetual swaps on unregulated venues were the strongest instruments for bitcoin price discovery, with regulated futures and U.S. spot exchanges reacting to, rather than leading, those moves.

Other work has identified Binance’s perpetual market as the primary source of price formation across the fragmented crypto landscape.

The evidence is not conclusive, however, and some studies find spot still leads at certain frequencies or during stress. But the direction of the literature over the past few years has been toward the derivatives market as the place where the price is made.

“Historically, we have seen perps leading mostly during bear market price rallies,” Julio Moreno, head of research at CryptoQuant, told CoinDesk. “For example, Bitcoin perps demand growth (blue bars in the chart) led the price rallies of January 2026, and April-May 2026.”

“In these periods, spot demand was contracting, while perps demand expanded, thus the perpetual futures market was leading prices despite demand contracting on the spot market,” he said.

Which brings us back to the funding rate. Because a perpetual contract never settles, nothing forces its price back toward spot the way an expiry date does for a traditional future. Instead, every few hours, whichever side of the trade is crowded pays the other.

When the perp trades above spot, traders who are long (or betting on higher prices) pay those who are short (betting on lower prices), which nudges the contract back toward the underlying price.

The funding rate is both the tether that keeps the contract anchored and a live readout of sentiment, which is why some traders watch it as closely as price.

“We actually surveyed more than 100 of our traders,” Hong Yea, co-founder at onchain trading platform Grvt, told CoinDesk. “The traders who actually rely on us to hold real conviction positions want predictability there, not another data point to interpret.”

“If you’re holding a directional position for weeks, funding isn’t telling you something new about the market, it’s just eating into your PnL while you wait to be right. That’s the honest way our users describe it to us, not, ‘what is the market telling me,” Yea added.

The SpaceX use case

None of this requires a spot market to exist. And for about three weeks in May and June, one of the most-watched markets in the world was for a company that had never sold a public share was running on crypto rails.

Elon Musk-owned SpaceX priced its record $75 billion initial public offering at $135 a share and began trading on the Nasdaq on June 12. Well before that, traders on Binance, Coinbase, Hyperliquid and others were already buying and selling exposure to the company through pre-IPO perpetual futures, or contracts structured to track an implied valuation rather than a share price.

The first mover was Hyperliquid, the onchain derivatives exchange, where a synthetic SpaceX perpetual went live on May 18. Binance opened its own SpaceX market on May 21, Coinbase followed on June 4, and BitMEX, Bitget and OKX later added contracts of their own.

The striking part is how right they were at the one moment their accuracy could be tested. On the night before SpaceX listed, perpetuals on Hyperliquid and Binance were quoting the equivalent of roughly $170 a share, well above the $135 the underwriters had set.

The next day SPCX opened, ran to an intraday high above $176, and closed its first session at $161, up 19%. The stock printed almost exactly where the perps had it, and a market dominated by leverage-seeking retail traders had read first-day demand more accurately than the banks that spent months building the offering price.

That gap was also where the money was. The perpetual market was pricing SpaceX well above the $135 IPO price, so traders could buy the contract before listing and bet the two would meet. Every one of these contracts was built to automatically switch over to SpaceX’s real share price the moment the stock began trading, so any gap between the perp and the eventual opening price would close on its own. With the IPO already four times oversubscribed, the direction was rarely in doubt, and the pre-listing window was the only place to make the trade.

Then reality caught up with the market that had predicted it. SPCX has fallen more than 40% from its June peak, dropping from the $135 IPO price to about $115 as of publication.

The reason is one the perp could never have priced — supply. Only a sliver of SpaceX’s shares were sold at the IPO, and starting around August 6, roughly 900 million locked-up insider shares become eligible to sell.

What SpaceX showed in the extreme is what the research says is already true in ordinary crypto trading — the derivatives market is increasingly where price gets discovered. Spot follows.

Perps are excellent at pricing demand and blind to supply, which is worth remembering every time a bitcoin rally or a flush starts in the funding rate before it reaches spot.

Aave, a leading lending protocol in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector, has announced a comprehensive restructuring process aimed at improving the platform’s efficiency. Aave founder Stani Kulechov stated that the protocol will gradually phase out assets with low usage rates and scale back its operations on some blockchain networks.

According to the announcement, Aave plans to gradually end support for 50 reserve assets on its own network that are not seeing sufficient usage. In addition, support will be phased out for 25 reserve assets on the Sonic, Scroll, zkSync, Metis, Soneium, and Aptos networks. Thus, a total of 75 reserve assets with low usage rates will be affected by the restructuring process.

Aave management stated that this step aims to ensure more efficient use of platform resources and to focus on assets that users show strong interest in. The protocol, which has expanded to different blockchain networks in recent years, had begun supporting numerous digital assets. However, due to some reserves failing to reach the expected transaction volume and user demand, the decision was made to simplify the system.

According to the data released, the restructuring process will affect approximately $98.1 million in reserve assets and $15.6 million in loan positions. Aave stated that support will be phased out gradually and necessary transition plans will be implemented to minimize customer inconvenience during this process.

Experts point out that it is common practice in the industry for DeFi protocols to occasionally remove assets with low liquidity or insufficient usage from the system. Such decisions can help platforms reduce maintenance costs while improving security and operational efficiency.

Aave is among the world’s largest decentralized finance protocols in terms of total locked assets (TVL) and offers lending and borrowing services to its users across different blockchain networks. Analysts believe that the restructuring decision may lead to liquidity shifts in affected reserve assets in the short term, but in the long term, it could support Aave’s goal of creating a more efficient and sustainable ecosystem.

*This is not investment advice.

Legislation Brings Regulatory Stability, Says Tenev

During the company’s second-quarter earnings call, Tenev said that while the Trump administration has been “great” for the industry, regulatory stability is necessary.

“We want the foundation of the industry in the U.S. to be durable,” Tenev added. “We don’t want the floor to be shifting out from under us every four, eight years, and new rules to be put in place.”

The top executive viewed the Clarity Act as an “important step” in this direction and could boost many of the company’s offerings currently under development, .

Record Revenue But Crypto Share Shrinks

Robinhood beat , with quarterly revenue clocking a record $1.3 billion.

Transaction-based revenues surged 44% year-over-year to $776 million, driven by equities, options and prediction markets. However, cryptocurrency revenue plunged 38%, adding to another quarter of decline.

Robinhood has expanded beyond asset trading in recent years by launching offerings centered around blockchain, tokenized assets and prediction markets.

Its prediction market revenue has exploded tenfold year-over-year to $156 million, while the number of contracts traded soared to a record 13.6 billion.

Price Action: Robinhood shares fell 1.01% in after-hours trading after closing 3.15% lower at $89.84 during Tuesday’s regular trading session. Year-to-date, the stock has plunged 15.43%.

Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings indicate that HOOD stock maintains a stronger price trend over the medium term, while underperforming in the short and long terms.

Photo courtesy: Thrive Studios ID / Shutterstock.com

Crypto’s largest tokens were close to unchanged on Thursday as the semiconductor selloff that has driven markets for two weeks showed its first real sign of easing.

Ether traded at about $1,905 and bitcoin at $64,100, both flat on the day, with $XRP at $1.07, solana at $74, $BNB at $572 and TRON at 33 cents. Hyperliquid’s $HYPE slipped to $54. Volumes were modest, with roughly $28 billion changing hands in bitcoin and $10 billion in ether.

Electronics giant Samsung said chip profit rose more than 250-fold on AI memory shortages, and the Kospi swung between a 6% gain and a 2% loss before settling, after a stretch that took the index down more than 40% from its June peak.

Samsung’s reaction is the tell on how high the bar has become. Profit up 250-fold moved the shares 2%. SK Hynix reported profit up 557% on Wednesday and fell 17%. Results are not the problem, expectations are.

U.S. earnings split overnight. Microsoft gained nearly 9% in extended trading on its fastest cloud growth in four years, while Meta fell 8% on a weak revenue forecast. Nasdaq 100 futures rose 1% after the index entered a technical correction on Wednesday.

The Crypto Fear and Greed Index, a key indicator measuring investor sentiment in cryptocurrency markets, remained at 35 points, suggesting a continued cautious outlook in the markets. Calculated by CoinMarketCap, the index showed no change compared to the previous day, revealing that investor risk appetite remains low.

The index indicates “excessive fear” in the market as it approaches zero, and “excessive greed” as it approaches 100. The current level of 35 points is in the “fear” zone, indicating that investors continue to act cautiously due to uncertainty and that market confidence has not yet fully recovered.

CoinMarketCap considers a variety of data points related to the cryptocurrency market when creating its index. The calculation takes into account indicators such as price movements of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, market volatility, put/call ratios in derivative markets, stablecoin supply ratio (SSR), and user search data on the CoinMarketCap platform. This allows the index to reflect not only price changes but also investor behavior and market trends.

Recently, global macroeconomic uncertainties, expectations regarding central bank monetary policies, and volatile price movements in crypto assets have been cited as the main factors limiting investors’ willingness to take risks. The fact that the index has remained at the same level for several days also indicates that the market is struggling to determine a new direction.

Analysts note that the Fear and Greed Index alone is not sufficient for making investment decisions, but it is considered an important indicator for understanding market psychology. Historically, periods when the index fell to very low levels sometimes presented buying opportunities, while excessively high levels increased the risk of profit taking.

*This is not investment advice.

Online brokerage Robinhood posted record second-quarter revenue and earnings, though cryptocurrency transaction revenue fell 38% from a year earlier.

According to the company’s earnings report on Wednesday, revenue increased 32% year over year to $1.31 billion, while its net income rose 48% to $573 million.

The company reported that cryptocurrency transaction revenue fell to $100 million from about $160 million a year earlier. Separately, it recorded $40 billion in crypto trading volume during the quarter, including $18 billion on the Robinhood app and $22 billion from Bitstamp, the crypto exchange it acquired in June 2025.

During the quarter, Robinhood continued expanding its digital asset business, launching the public mainnet of Robinhood Chain, introducing tokenized US stocks to eligible users in more than 120 countries and debuting its first decentralized lending product, Robinhood Earn.

The company also completed its acquisition of Canadian crypto platform WonderFi, said it plans to expand its crypto offerings in the United Kingdom and reported that nearly 100,000 customer accounts are now enrolled in Agentic Trading, representing more than $100 million in assets under custody.

The price of Robinhood shares were down 3.15% on Wednesday ahead of the company’s earnings release, according to Yahoo Finance data.

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