Wall Street Panics: Coinbase Gobbles Deribit and Makes Binance Nervous 😱

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Coinbase’s $2.9 billion purchase of Deribit hurls it to the summit of global crypto options, leaving Binance and its ilk gasping for breath.
Those with too much time on their hands (analysts) claim this is the dawn of consolidation: Coinbase, armed with Wall Street cash and a stubborn will, stands ready to gulp competitors whole.
Coinbase stretches its tentacles across the globe; soon, every crypto trader, from Dusseldorf to Dakar, may feel their presence. All this, and a tasty $450M in Deribit options revenue for 2024. Not bad work if you can get it.

There are moments in history when fate turns its cold, dead-eyed stare upon an industry; Thursday was such a day for crypto exchanges. Coinbase—firmly American, but with ambitions swollen by $2.9 billion in loose change—has snapped up Deribit. Wall Street scribes, probably still in their pajamas, described this as the tipping point. And why not? At $2.9 billion, tipping* is the least you can do.

But let no one be deceived, this isn’t just a matter of adding another platform to the digital portfolio—no. This, comrades, is the march of destiny. Here begins the epoch of consolidation, where small, hopeful exchanges tremble like prisoners at roll call, and ancient TradFi houses peer through the frost of irrelevance, eager to sink their teeth into crypto’s flesh.

Deribit, undisputed lord of the crypto options gulag (85% market share and $1.2 trillion traded), now shackled to Coinbase’s gleaming chain. A grim arithmetic, courtesy of KeyBanc: the world’s largest crypto derivatives fortress—open interest, options volume, all under one roof. Let Binance and the others wail as they scroll earnings reports.

Geography, too, succumbs to the expansionist urge. Overseas, where Coinbase once scavenged for scraps (a mere 20% of its revenue), now opens wide for conquest—so says Chairman Buddish of Barclays as he straightens his tie.

The chroniclers at Oppenheimer have taken the trouble to call this deal a “legitimate threat.” Terrifying, no doubt, to those who slept soundly until last night, unaware that Coinbase’s public company status would be used to buy rivals with little paper slips called stock. Private firms, clutching their old-fashioned cash, can only watch and weep. With $8.5 billion in the war chest, Coinbase becomes the indiscriminate eater of worlds—the glutton at the consolidation banquet.🍽️

Why options? Unlike your cousin’s doomed memecoin, they bring reliable volume no matter which way the economic winds blow. Barclays mutters about $425 million to $450 million in revenue. To Coinbase’s accountants, these are the only numbers worth memorizing.

Strategists at KeyBanc, ever hungry for a good spreadsheet, applaud the “fit.” Deribit’s suit-and-tied institutional crowd, together with their international reach: it’s as if destiny herself arranged the marriage to complement Coinbase’s futures and spot products.

A final twist, as always: the dreaded regulatory stamp remains out of reach. Perhaps, in some smoky meeting, approval will be granted, perhaps not. But the crowd waits—breath held—for comments from Coinbase in the first quarter’s earnings spectacle.

Do the markets care? The first quarter, battered by unpredictable storms, looks bleak. Expectations, like half-buried rations, will not be met. But still, Coinbase stock rises 6.58%, bitcoin nudges up 4.31%, and somewhere a Wall Street analyst wonders if consolidation could pay his bonus.

Meanwhile, Binance checks under its bed for Coinbase. 🚀

2025-05-08 23:58

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