Coinbase Relaunches Major Initiative That Will Be The First In Cryptocurrency History, Insiders Say

Coinbase is reigniting its ambition to bring tokenized securities to the U.S. market, a move that could redefine how traditional assets are traded on the blockchain.

Coinbase Considers Issuing Its Own Stock as a Token

The company’s renewed move aligns with changing regulatory factors under the administration of President Donald Trump, who has recently signaled a more crypto-friendly stance.

The change in regulatory tone comes amid a series of impeachment orders from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including a lawsuit filed by the regulator against Coinbase itself. With the SEC’s newly formed crypto task force, Coinbase sees a new opportunity to introduce securitized tokens to American investors, a vision it first pursued five years ago but failed to deliver.

Coinbase first hinted at its tokenized securities ambitions in its 2020 S-1 filing, in which it explored the possibility of launching its own security token. At Morgan Stanley’s TMT Conference, Coinbase Chief Financial Officer Alesia Haas discussed the company’s initial efforts to launch such products.

“I now believe that our U.S. regulators are looking for product innovation and they want to move forward,” Haas said. “Many of you probably didn’t read our first S-1 filing in 2020, but we tried to go public with a security token. We tried to take our own products public. But we couldn’t, and we ran into walls.”

Coinbase initially attempted to launch a tokenized version of its COIN stock during the S-1 process, but regulatory hurdles halted the move. A source with knowledge of the matter said Coinbase is designing a crypto-specific version of the stock as the first major crypto company to go public.

“We are evaluating a number of options to bring tokenization innovation to traditional financial assets such as securities, making them more efficient and accessible,” the source said.

*This is not investment advice.