Even so, a 1.6 billion dollar valuation of coinbase is certainly very high. Assuming that over the course of the long term they are comparable to something like intercontinental exchange (the owner of NYSE/EURONEXT, and controller of the clearing house for 50% of the worlds oil futures/derivative products).

The total market cap of coins traded on their platform would need to be magnitudes larger to justify this valuation unless they can somehow either continue to justify their high fees amidst competition, or they would need to totally monopolize all future cryptocurrency banking, something that could certainly involve large amounts of competition in the future as well.

This. When their hands are so strong, they probably got a pretty favorable terms.

Having cash sounds great, but does this kind of cash create a crutch? $100M seems like a large number for CB, but I don't know enough about its business to understand how far that money goes. Is CB growing very quickly and in what ways? Is CB making money on their own?

In order to become the de facto home for crypto payment/trading, what does that mean? Does it mean they need to help make the adoption / use of cryptocurrencies easier and more widespread? I am curious as to how this money gets spent.

Why on earth would it become a "home for crypto". The only reason I use them is because Kraken & Co requires full SSN to buy or sell; Coinbase doesn't. There is no network effect here. I don't buy/sell/keep with Coinbase because my friends or family does. The moment I found some other system that doesn't require my full SSN to be revealed, Im moving on as well.

Not sure why so many people downvoted you, this is likely their thought process.

Makes sense, but I don't love how they handled the whole Bitcoin split.