Lawsuit Win, Europe Expansion, $1B in BTC Loans

Coinbase’s S&P 500 debut shows mainstream acceptance, but regulatory and security challenges show the road ahead remains complex.

Coinbase closed 2025 with a series of milestone achievements, including joining the S & P 500, receiving European regulatory approval, and surpassing $1 billion in crypto-backed loans.

The year also marked major business and product developments, from record-breaking purchases to wider access to on-chain assets, strengthening the exchange’s position as the leading full-stack crypto platform.

Record Growth and Global Expansion

In a January 6 post on X, Coinbase documented its key events from last year, including being the first crypto-native company listed on the S & P 500, strengthening the place of digital assets in the portfolios of ordinary finances.

The exchange also completed ten acquisitions, including Liquifi Finance, Echodot.xyz, and Deribit, which coincidentally was the largest acquisition in crypto history, expanding its offering from tokenization support to secondary trading.

On the regulatory side, Coinbase received approval under the European MiCA framework, allowing it to offer regulated crypto services across the EU with a single license. US operations also emerged, with the company also incorporated in Texas.

Institutional trading grew as the exchange introduced 24/7 CFTC-regulated futures, US-style perpetual, and cross-border trading, while retail users gained access to crypto-backed loans exceeding $1 billion in Bitcoin collateral, now including Ethereum loans.

The company’s product expansion includes Solana DEX trading within its app, giving 100 million users access to millions of tokens on the fast-growing blockchain. In addition, the sale of tokens returned to the sale of fair distribution models, the Coinbase One Card was launched with Bitcoin rewards, and Base, a social platform application, trading, and payments, distributed globally.

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2025 also brought a legal victory. The SEC voluntarily dismissed its case against the exchange, ending a lengthy litigation that many in the industry saw as a major regulatory hurdle.

Growing Ambitions Meet Growing Security Concerns

Despite its commercial success, Coinbase faces ongoing criticism for security and user protection. Following CEO Brian Armstrong’s 2026 roadmap announcement, crypto researcher Taylor Monahan argued earlier in the week that user security was not a priority, citing more than $350 million in preventable losses by 2025.

He mentioned an incident in 2024 where the Coinbase Commerce contract was linked to a suspicious outflow of $15.9 million, a problem highlighted at the time by investigator ZachXBT. Critics say the rapid growth of trading and the introduction of new products, including prediction markets and extended trading, have sometimes overwhelmed its security infrastructure.

The company is also involved in new legal battles. Last year, it filed lawsuits against Illinois, Michigan, and Connecticut, challenging state efforts to classify prediction market contracts as illegal gambling. Coinbase asserted that these products fall under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The move comes just ahead of its planned January 2026 launch of event-based contract trading in partnership with CFTC-regulated platform Kalshi.