Coinbase (Coin) has BTC's personal technique on the company steadiness sheet, but it surely's not the most important checklist of bitcoins like Michael Saylor's technique (MSTR).
Within the firm's first quarter, 2025 income name, CFO Alesia Haas revealed that Coinbase had bought $150 million in crypto, “primarily Bitcoin,” bringing its long-term funding portfolio to $1.3 billion, or 25% internet money.
Nonetheless, Haas didn’t get in her method to attract a line between Coinbase and the company.
“To be clear, we’re the administration firm,” she mentioned. “However we're investing together with the area.”
In different phrases, Coinbase shouldn’t be betting the corporate on Bitcoin. Armstrong mentioned in a Q&A name with retail traders that he had been tempted to place lots of BTC on his steadiness sheet within the early days, however that was too harmful. Cryptocurrency was unstable, and on the time Coinbase was too younger to take that danger.
Now the large ones listed have modified so that you don't have to all-in with Bitcoin. Coinbase allocates income from operations to crypto belongings, much like how commodity firms accumulate uncooked supplies. This transfer shouldn’t be Michael Saylor, however recycling capital within the sector.
In reality, Coinbase didn't even trumpet the acquisition in a shareholder's letter. The information solely surfaced in response to questions from retail shareholders relating to “buying onerous crypto reserve belongings.”
CEO Brian Armstrong didn’t discuss immediately concerning the buy, however supplied a philosophical context. Coinbase reminds traders and doesn't dare dabble with cryptography – it's cryptography.
“We've been specializing in cryptography because the starting 12 years in the past, and we're nonetheless specializing in that,” Armstrong mentioned. “Crypto is consuming monetary companies.”
For Armstrong, shopping for BTC is a by-product of conviction and operational integrity, not a headline play, a Treasury Pivot, or an activist wager.
Coinbase has not held BTC to market broader beliefs or change into an agent like MSTR. Behind the accounting language is deeper. Holding Bitcoin is just a part of Coinbase's job, akin to constructing rails beneath it.
It's not a monetary technique – it's one thing within the center.
