Public Keys: Coinbase Cashes In, IBIT Slips, and REX Spins Volatility Into Gold

Public Keys is a weekly roundup from Decrypt that tracks the key publicly traded crypto companies. This week: Coinbase wallops Q3 estimates, BlackRock’s IBIT sees a sharp pullback, and REX Shares’ new ETF is harvesting crypto stock volatility.

Coinbase’s Volatility Tailwind

Coinbase topped expectations on Thursday with Q3 revenue of approximately $1.9 billion and transaction revenue hitting $1.0 billion. That’s a sharp rebound as spot volumes return to the exchange.

The company also said Q4 is off to a strong start, with October transaction revenue already at $385 million. Beyond trading, Coinbase benefitted from a tailwind thanks to subscription and services: Staking, custodial services, interest. The company also flagged that the Ethereum L2 that it incubated, Base, was profitable.

The company, which trades on the Nasdaq under the COIN ticker, ended Friday having gained 4.65%. But the share price was still 3% lower than it was at the start of the week.

The earnings report reinforces that volatility and volumes—although they can be hell for traders—tend to bolster COIN’s bottom line.

And to supercharge that effect, the company has been focusing on making more and more assets available to investors. The expansion has taken Coinbase from “about 300 to over 40,000 assets in the U.S.” by way of DEX integrations, said CEO Brian Armstrong, who added that the quarter also included the first launch of “CFTC-regulated 24/7 perpetual style futures in the U.S..”

Perps have been all the rage among traders, but some industry experts have raised an eyebrow about how much risk they’re introducing to markets.

IBIT Traders Spooked

Speaking of volatility, institutions yanked funds from Bitcoin ETFs after BTC dove below $110,000 on Thursday.

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, or IBIT, accounted for nearly half the Bitcoin ETF category’s outflows on Thursday, when it saw $290.8 million worth of withdrawals on a day when Bitcoin spot ETFs lost $488.4 million.

On Friday, IBIT saw traders sell $149.3 million worth of shares, making up 77% of outflows for the day, according to data from Farside Investors.

But IBIT is still BlackRock’s shining star among its ETF catalog. On a cumulative basis IBIT’s lifetime net inflow remains massive, with more than $88 billion worth of assets under management. One session doesn’t change the structural adoption story—just the week’s P&L.

Another REX Volatility Play

New York-based REX Shares has built its reputation on unconventional ETFs. Its latest offering treats volatility in equities—including crypto companies—like a feature, rather than a bug.

The REX IncomeMax Option Strategy ETF, which trades on the Nasdaq under the ULTI ticker, is an actively managed fund that targets some of the market’s most volatile U.S. stocks. And no surprise, really, that it includes crypto-exposed names like crypto miner Core Scientific, crypto exchange Gemini, and crypto lender Figure.

The portfolio extends beyond crypto too. The fund works by running a dynamic options book with a mix of puts and calls that convert price swings into weekly distributions while attempting to cap tail risk.

For investors who want exposure to the “crypto-beta via equities” trade, but prefer an income overlay, ULTI is a notable entrant—and another sign that Wall Street keeps packaging crypto volatility in different wrappers.

Other Keys

Stop the Core fusion dance: Bitcoin miner Core Scientific’s investors axed the company’s $9 billion merger with AI computing firm CoreWeave.

Remit this: Western Union—yes, the remittance heavyweight—has trademarked WUUSD. But confusingly, it showed up after the company said USDPT would be the ticker for its planned stablecoin.  It might just be a flag planted to keep others from using the ticker.