What Does Coinbase Do? Trading Fees, USDC and Custody

Coinbase Global, Inc. (COIN) is a US-listed company that runs a crypto exchange. In 2021, 87% of its revenue came from trading fees. In the three months to 30 June 2026 that share was 45%.

The rest comes from subscriptions and services. The biggest piece is interest on the reserves behind USD Coin (USDC), a token designed to be worth one dollar. This guide follows the money through Coinbase's filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Coinbase is an exchange, a custodian and a payments business in one. Customers buy and sell crypto assets on its platform, leave those assets with Coinbase to hold, or stake them. Each activity earns a fee.

The accounts split the income into three lines. Transaction revenue covers trading fees plus the charges for moving money in and out. Subscriptions and services was 39.4% of 2025 revenue. Other revenue is interest on Coinbase's own corporate cash.

Revenue peaked at $7.8 billion in 2021. It fell to $3.2 billion in 2022 as crypto prices dropped.

Revenue was $7.2 billion in 2025, below the 2021 peak. Transaction revenue was 56.5% of it, trading fees alone 52.9%.

Inside subscriptions and services sit stablecoin revenue, staking rewards, interest on customer cash and loans, plus other fees. Staking means committing crypto to help run a blockchain network, which pays rewards in return.

Coinbase splits the fees between consumers and institutions. Consumers are individuals, while institutions are firms. Consumers pay the far higher rate. In 2025 Coinbase handled $1.2 trillion of trading volume, $239 billion of it from consumers and $982 billion from institutions.

Source: Coinbase Form 10-K for 2025

Other transaction fees are charges for deposits and withdrawals, plus revenue from Base Chain, the network Coinbase built on Ethereum. No trading volume sits behind them.

The gap is wide. Consumers did 19.6% of the volume. They paid $3,322.8 million of the $4,055.4 million of transaction revenue, which is 81.9%. Their average rate was about 28 times the institutional one.

A quiet quarter for consumer trading therefore costs Coinbase far more than a quiet one for institutions.

A card payment splits its fee between several firms along the chain. Our guide to how card payments work sets out who takes what.

USDC is a stablecoin issued by Circle Internet Financial. Coinbase's filing describes reserves held against the coins in circulation. Those reserves earn interest, which is the money Coinbase shares in.

Coinbase's annual report on Form 10-K sets out the split. First, income from the reserves, less management fees and certain expenses, forms what the filing calls the Payment Base.

Second, Circle keeps a share as issuer. Third, Coinbase and Circle each earn on the USDC held on their own platforms. Fourth, other approved participants take their share. Fifth, Coinbase receives 50% of what is left.

Three things drive the line: how much USDC exists, how much sits in Coinbase products, then interest rates.

In 2025 higher balances added $417.7 million on the platform and $314.1 million off it. Lower average rates, down 89 basis points or 0.89 percentage points, took $290.8 million away.

Stablecoin revenue was $1.35 billion in 2025, which is 18.8% of everything Coinbase earned that year.

Coinbase holds crypto for customers and charges for it. Assets on its platform were $245.9 billion at 30 June 2026, of which Bitcoin was $170.8 billion and Ethereum was $29.7 billion.

A year earlier the total was $425.0 billion. Coinbase attributes the 42% fall mainly to lower crypto prices, offset in part by growth in units, both mostly Bitcoin.

Staking is the other service line. Coinbase runs the validating computers on those blockchain networks, then keeps a cut of the rewards.

Staking brought in $677.4 million in 2025. In the quarter to 30 June 2026 it was $83.3 million, down from $144.5 million a year earlier.

Transaction revenue and crypto prices have moved apart. The chart sets Coinbase's quarterly transaction revenue and the average Bitcoin price in the quarter to 100 at the start of 2022.

By the second quarter of 2026 the Bitcoin index stood at 174, the revenue index at 59.

Volume links the two. In the quarter to 30 June 2026 consumer spot trading volume fell 38% against a year earlier, pulling consumer trading fees down by $230.4 million.

Spot trading means trades in the crypto assets themselves, as against derivatives. From that quarter Coinbase stopped reporting trading volume, which makes the link harder to follow.

In the three months to 30 June 2026 Coinbase reported revenue of $1.22 billion, down 18.5% on a year earlier. Consumer trading fees were the largest line at $451.7 million. Stablecoin revenue came next at $292.1 million, or 24.0% of revenue.

The quarter produced a net loss of $359.5 million, or $1.36 a share. A restructuring announced on 5 May 2026 cut about 700 jobs at a cost of $52.4 million.

Coinbase reports in dollars under US generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). Under those rules it marks its own crypto holdings to market every quarter, which cost $241.2 million here, $209.5 million on its investment holdings and $31.7 million on its operating holdings.

Marking to market means restating those holdings at their quoted price each quarter end, with the change running through the income statement.

For 2025: revenue was $7.2 billion, up 9.4%. Operating income was $1.44 billion, an operating margin of 20.0%. Net income was $1.26 billion, or 17.6% of revenue. Diluted earnings per share were $4.45.

Transaction revenue was $4,055.4 million of the total, subscriptions and services $2.83 billion.

Operating cash flow was $2.43 billion. Coinbase publishes no free cash flow figure, because its statements show no separate capital spending line.

The swing between quarters is wide. The 2025 net profit of $1.26 billion sits against the net loss of $359.5 million in the three months to 30 June 2026.

The largest case against Coinbase has ended. The SEC's complaint, filed on 6 June 2023, alleged that Coinbase ran its trading platform as an unregistered national securities exchange and clearing agency. It also alleged that its staking service was an unregistered offering of securities.

On 28 February 2025 Coinbase and the SEC jointly stipulated to dismissal with prejudice, which means the same claim cannot be brought again.

New rules have arrived since. In July 2025 the United States enacted the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act (the GENIUS Act), a federal framework for payment stablecoins and their issuers.

Coinbase obtained a licence under the European Union's Markets in Crypto Assets regulation in Luxembourg in June 2025.

Pieces of the group are regulated separately. Coinbase Custody Trust Company is chartered by the New York State Department of Financial Services.

The group also holds Virtual Asset Service Provider registrations, the licence a crypto firm needs, in the United Kingdom and Argentina.

Coinbase shares closed at $181.79 on 13 October 2026, against $328.28 on their first day of trading in April 2021. That is a fall of 44.6%. Over the same days Bitcoin rose 32.0% and SPY (the S&P 500 ETF) rose 89.1%.

These are closing prices, with dividends not counted. The chart sets all three lines to 100 at the start.

Four things set the direction. Crypto prices come first, because they drive both trading volume and the value of assets held. Interest rates come second, since stablecoin revenue is interest income.

Regulation comes third. The mix comes fourth, since subscription revenue does not depend on trading volume.

Coinbase began as a place to buy Bitcoin. In the three months to 30 June 2026 trading fees were 45% of its revenue. The rest came from moving money, holding, staking and servicing crypto assets.

Coinbase charges a fee on each trade, which gave it $4,055.4 million of transaction revenue in 2025. It also earns subscription and service income of $2.83 billion. The largest piece of that, $1.35 billion, is interest on the reserves backing the USDC stablecoin, with the rest from staking rewards, custody fees and interest on customer cash.

Yes. Under its arrangement with Circle, the issuer of USDC, Coinbase shares the interest earned on the reserves backing the coin. After fees, Circle's share as issuer, the platform shares and the shares taken by other approved participants, Coinbase receives 50% of what is left. That line was $1.35 billion in 2025.

It depends on the quarter. Coinbase made a net profit of $1.26 billion in 2025 on revenue of $7.2 billion. In the three months to 30 June 2026 it reported a net loss of $359.5 million. Its trading fees and the value of the crypto it holds both fell in that quarter.

Partly. Coinbase Custody Trust Company is chartered by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Group companies hold registrations in the United Kingdom, Argentina and Luxembourg. The SEC action against Coinbase was dismissed with prejudice on 28 February 2025. The GENIUS Act, enacted in July 2025, sets federal rules for payment stablecoins.

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