After years of venture-funded dominance, Coinbase is reviving the concept crypto tasks can increase cash straight from their customers.
The US-based alternate introduced on Oct. 21 that it acquired Echo, a community-fundraising platform based by veteran investor Jordan “Cobie” Fish, in a $375 million deal to rebuild fairer, on-chain capital markets.
In accordance with the alternate:
“Echo believes in democratizing early-stage investing, in order that extra folks can assist the subsequent technology of breakthrough firms…Integrating Echo’s instruments will assist us allow extra direct group participation, becoming a member of tasks with capital, totally onchain.”
The acquisition positions Coinbase on the heart of a development reshaping token financing. Echo has already processed greater than $200 million throughout 300 offers, utilizing its merchandise Echo Non-public and Sonar, a self-hosted public-sale device.
Collectively, they let tasks run compliant token gross sales with out counting on centralized launchpads or opaque enterprise allocations.
In the meantime, Echo will stay a standalone model, however Coinbase plans to fold its infrastructure right into a full-stack pipeline spanning its alternate and Base layer-2 community. This implies the fundraising platform’s device of launch, fundraising, and secondary buying and selling could be totally built-in into the Coinbase platform.
Coinbase says the combination will finally lengthen past crypto tokens to tokenized securities and real-world property (RWAs).
From ICO Bust to Regulated Launchpads
Coinbase’s acquisition inevitably recollects the Preliminary Coin Providing (ICO) increase of 2017 and 2018, when startups reportedly raised round $20 billion globally earlier than the bubble collapsed beneath regulatory strain.
Nonetheless, a five-year freeze in public token gross sales adopted as non-public enterprise rounds took over.
Now, with clearer guidelines arising globally, together with the US, Europe’s MiCA framework, Singapore’s licensing regime, and KYC-based launchpads, public fundraising is resurfacing in a managed type.
In accordance with Tiger Analysis, compliant launchpads have generated lots of of tens of millions of {dollars} in 2025, with tasks like Plasma’s XPL token utilizing Echo’s Sonar system to shut oversubscribed gross sales.
Coinbase’s Echo acquisition indicators a bid to institutionalize that momentum. By routing early-stage choices by its regulated alternate, the publicly-listed agency can expose vetted tasks to 110 million verified customers whereas giving retail traders a authorized path into offers as soon as restricted to VCs.
A return to the group however to not 2017
Whether or not this marks the return of ICO-style hypothesis is much less sure.
Analysts at Tiger Analysis see as we speak’s surroundings as structurally completely different as a result of compliance is stricter, yields are decrease, and knowledge asymmetry is narrower.
In accordance with the agency, launchpads akin to Buidlpad in Korea present sturdy short-term efficiency, however common token good points have settled under 5×, a far cry from 2017’s 100× rallies.
On the similar time, Blockworks Researcher Carlos mentioned:
“The present ICO panorama navigates a tradeoff between excessive hostile choice (unhealthy founders) & capital formation maturity (excessive valuations).”
Nonetheless, demand for clear, on-chain fundraising stays excessive. Echo’s mannequin of screened individuals, verifiable smart-contract funding, and open cap tables gives a regulated framework for retail inclusion.
Tiger Analysis said:
“Public launchpads present renewed entry to ‘early funding alternatives’ that remained closed for a while. They provide particular person traders excluded from enterprise capital-centered market buildings a path to take part in early-stage tasks by fairer and extra clear strategies.”
If profitable, Coinbase’s guess might bridge two eras of crypto finance: the speculative crowdsales that ignited public curiosity and the regulated token markets now rising beneath international oversight.
Within the course of, the alternate could show that group capital formation, as soon as dismissed as a relic of the wild-west cycle, nonetheless has a future on Wall Road rails.
Nonetheless, Tiger Analysis cautioned that important challenges persist. The agency defined that open participation and selective effectivity inherently battle, making it troublesome to steadiness inclusivity with high quality management.
It famous:
“Overly clear standards invite system exploitation. Opaque standards weaken belief.”
Contemplating this, Tiger Analysis added that putting that steadiness would require additional institutional and technical refinement because the trade matures.
