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For more than a decade, cryptocurrency wrestled with a contradiction. Once a platform that emerged as the darling of shadow banking, it is now the front-facing system in the economic global reset.
Gone are the days of digital currency via a blockchain network being propagated by dark web aficionados. Rather than banner-waving crypto-bros lauded as economic oracles of an underground powerhouse, cryptocurrency has become quite the complicated it girl in market restructuring.
Under the Trump Administration, crypto has been positioned as the future currency of choice. Yet, it currently struggles to coexist with regulatory systems designed for traditional finance. As Congress works to fold in a less volatile digital currency market, it also disrupts a subaltern commerce culture.
Given its original promise of decentralization—which means monetary activities freed from the clutches of centralized banking systems—crypto sits in a political quandary. Because of its salience in the market, the tension in how to shift from an unregulated to regulated monetary system was a theoretical possibility. Today, it is a legislative, cultural, and economic practice.
At the center of crypto’s existential crisis is Coinbase. Initially, Coinbase served as a simple, consumer on-ramp for buying, selling and converting Bitcoin. In the transition to a more regulated cryptocurrency, Coinbase has evolved into something far more consequential: a corporate political actor, a financial infrastructure provider, and increasingly, a cultural platform.
The corporate political actor. Coinbase’s recent public break with the passage of the Clarity Act, demonstrated how deep the platform’s influence is in the political sphere. If passed, the bill to establish “a regulatory framework for digital commodities,” would be landmark legislation.
While the proposed law passed in the House, hours before the Senate Banking Committee planned to move it forward for a congressional vote, Coinbase pulled its support. The company cited that it disagreed with the amendments made to the Clarity Act when it was sent to the Senate.
“We’d rather have no bill than a bad bill,” Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said, explaining the company’s position. After reviewing the draft text, Armstrong added that “Coinbase unfortunately can’t support the bill as written.”
One major issue in the Senate’s version of the Clarity Act is the limitations placed on Stablecoins. A cryptocurrency backed by Coinbase, Stablecoins aim to reduce the volatility by offering price stability with a digital token backed by the same equivalent in cash or equivalent reserves.
The company’s objection was not to oversight itself, but to provisions it argued would lock crypto into a restrictive framework. Armstrong warned that the legislation could be “materially worse than the status quo,” citing limits on tokenized assets, privacy-preserving finance, and especially stablecoin rewards.
Subsequently, Coinbase’s withdrawal of its support for the Clarity Act halted the Senate Banking Committee. It also sent a clear message to Washington. As one of the foremost leaders in fintech, its stance said that regulatory clarity alone is insufficient when it comes at the cost of future innovation.
The rise of Base
“A global economy built for all of us” is the motto of Coinbase’s software program, Base. Whereas the parent entity deals with fiscal transactions, the tech progeny serves as a social financial layer. By using Base, its cultural arm of digital currency, Coinbase is no longer reacting to regulation and adoption, it actively shapes them with a powerful triumvirate—policy, coded programs and a belief system.
By taking that stance publicly, Coinbase reframed its role. Instead of quietly lobbying for incremental changes, it positioned itself as a long-term steward of the crypto economy, willing to absorb short-term uncertainty to avoid long-term damage.
Stablecoins as the backbone, not the footnote
Nowhere is Coinbase’s philosophy clearer than in its defense of stablecoins.
Stablecoins are often treated as background infrastructure, useful but unremarkable. Coinbase sees them differently. In its view, stablecoins are the connective tissue between crypto and everyday economic life, powering payments, savings, payroll, remittances, and on-chain commerce.
One of the company’s major concerns with the Clarity Act was what multiple reports described as provisions that could effectively “kill rewards on stablecoins.” For Coinbase, that was not a minor detail. It struck at the heart of how digital dollars can compete with, and improve upon, traditional banking products.
Armstrong has previously argued that consumers deserve better outcomes from financial innovation. “Consumers deserve a bigger piece of the pie,” he said in earlier commentary on stablecoin interest, noting that on-chain yields could “force us all to up our game for the ultimate benefit of consumers.”
In that light, Coinbase’s resistance to restrictive stablecoin rules is less about corporate profit and more about defining who benefits from the next financial system, big boy institutions or common folk?
Base and the rise of personal markets
If regulation is the institutional battlefront, Coinbase positions itself to be the cultural frontline.
Technically, Base is a Layer 2 network. That means it is a secondary framework or protocol built on top of an existing blockchain (Layer 1) to significantly increase transaction speed, scalability, and reduce fees. Yet, in practice, it is becoming a social financial layer where identity, content, and capital intersect. On Base, profiles double as wallets, and posts become assets. Ultimately for users, engagement is no longer measured solely in likes or followers, but in economic participation.
Because it touts itself as the “everything app” much like WeChat, supporting a creator early on Base—including collecting a post, or backing a community—can carry financial meaning. Value no longer flows only upward to platforms. It can accrue sideways, and sometimes directly, to individuals.
This shift introduces a powerful idea: personal market cap.
In crypto-native social environments, a person’s reputation, consistency, and community can translate into on-chain demand. Identity itself becomes investable. People are no longer just users generating data for platforms. They are markets with quantifiable value.
From exchange to infrastructure
Taken together, Coinbase’s regulatory posture, its stablecoin advocacy, and its investment in Base suggest a company redefining its mission. Coinbase is not trying to be just another bank with 4 plus percent yield nor simply another instagramish social network. It is building the infrastructure where banking, markets, and social identity converge.
That ambition explains why its decisions now ripple far beyond its own balance sheet. As the Clarity Act is in limbo, now industry persons know when Coinbase enters the regulation area, lawmakers acknowledge how it builds; how it engages developers; and the ways in which Base creators experiment. Then when it draws a line in the sand, the industry recalibrates.
The question is no longer whether crypto will be regulated or adopted. That outcome is inevitable. The real question is who sculpts and formulates the rules, and who captures the value.
As crypto moves from assets to identities, from platforms to people, a new metric begins to matter.
Moving forward, the question will be, “what’s your market cap?” And not just the market capitalization (market cap or value) of a company or a token, but your personal valuation in the crypto economy. Whether it involves the Base blockchain or other emerging currencies, your involvement is crucial, whether it pertains to the Base blockchain or other emerging cryptocurrencies.