Coinbase Brings ICOs Back to the U.S.

In a move that feels both inevitable and quietly revolutionary, Coinbase has unveiled a regulated token-sale platform that effectively reopens the door to U.S. retail participation in primary crypto offerings for the first time since the SEC nuked the 2017 ICO boom.

The message is clear: token launches aren’t dead — they’re just graduating from the wild west to Wall Street-with-wallet-connect. And Coinbase intends to run the admissions office.

Monthly Token Sales, Starting With Monad

The platform will run one token sale per month, kicking off with Monad’s MON token Nov. 17–22. During that week, verified Coinbase users can submit purchase requests using USDC.

An algorithm will allocate tokens bottom-up — smaller bids get priority before larger ones. It’s a not-so-subtle attempt to look fairer than the old ICO model where hedge funds ate first and retail grabbed crumbs.

Held your breath through the window and still didn’t get an allocation? At least there won’t be bots from some offshore Discord server front-running you this time.

Monad is the first token sale on Coinbase, source: X

Flip Fast? Lose Access

Coinbase is also tying incentives to long-term participation. Early dumpers will see reduced access to future token sales — a mechanism designed to reward holders and discourage the “mint, dump, brag on Crypto Twitter” culture that defined earlier cycles.

Founders don’t escape the discipline either. Projects launching on the platform face six-month token lockups, and can’t secretly offload allocations OTC without Coinbase approval and disclosure. Remember 2017’s vaporware rug-pulls? Coinbase sure does.

Why Now?

If this feels like ICOs 2.0, it is — just wrapped in compliance, KYC checks, and the warm glow of a Nasdaq-listed company insisting everything is above board. Coinbase has spent years dancing around a U.S. regulatory minefield. Now it’s betting the climate has shifted enough to reintroduce token issuance — the profit center exchanges have long left overseas.

And let’s not ignore the subtext: this launches weeks after Coinbase acquired Cobie’s Echo platform for roughly $400M. That wasn’t just a media buy — it was ammo for a token distribution empire.

Welcome to the debut concert.

Goodbye Airdrop Era? Probably.

Airdrops have been the default go-to for “community building” in the regulatory vacuum post-ICO. But they’ve mostly devolved into sybil-farmed entitlement events and quick-exits, with protocols lighting money on fire to attract fair-weather mercenaries.

Coinbase is offering founders a cleaner path: raise capital from verified participants, get instant listing and liquidity, and avoid airdrop chaos. And projects are already voting with their token allocations — Monad is granting ~3.3% of supply to airdrop recipients but ~7.5% to the token sale.

Free money still exists — but ownership now has a price tag again.

What It Means

Crypto fundraising just got a regulated U.S. reboot. Expect:

• A steady wave of token launches choosing Coinbase over venture or offshore platforms
  
• Airdrops shrinking from headline strategy to support role
  
• U.S. retail getting structured access to early-stage crypto again
  
• Institutions circling primary issuance like it’s a shiny new IPO window
  

This is a turning point. If the last cycle was “crypto vs. regulators,” the next one looks more like “crypto grown-ups build alongside regulated rails.”

Coinbase isn’t just launching tokens. It’s reclaiming the launchpad business from Asia, Telegram launch squads, and whatever shadow-realm CoinList turned into.

The ICO era isn’t back, it’s evolving — and this time, it brought compliance, stability, and a corporate dress code. Whether that leads to healthier markets or just more sophisticated hype cycles… we’ll find out when MON goes live.