I know in these crypto threads there are always some questionable characters who turn up and say "Well actually <obviously bad thing> is really good". In this case I'm going to kind of be that person. Very often with tech start ups a big part of their success is basically breaking the standard rules whilst they grow. Like Uber operating illegally in NYC or skirting employment laws in various jurisdictions.

Inevitably as those types of businesses grow they have to move into line with the actual law, and it's not a bad thing, Uber doesn't have to hand back the growth that they got with that dodgy behavior, now they're the market leader. Sure, it cuts into their profits, but the cost of continuing to break those rules was slowly going to cost them more and more. In the case of Uber it was things like facing an outright ban from London for example.

So on balance I think this is a good indicator that Coinbase is maturing into a stable business. Maybe that means some of the libertarian dreams die, but from a wider business point of view I think this is natural and fine. It's perfectly fine to run an exchange, it's a decent business. CME Group has a P/E ratio of 27 versus a P/E ratio of 6 for coinbase (for obvious reasons it's not doing well right now). I've said before, if COIN drops into the $5-10Bn range it would be a great acquisition target.