It’s easy to lose a lot of money trading cryptocurrency, but one trade makes money no matter which way the memes flip: Crypto exchanges. It’s like buying a stock exchange instead of trading the stocks, or depending on your view of how risky crypto is, it could be more like buying a casino without having to play roulette. Investing in stocks like Coinbase$COIN ( ▲ 0.38% ) , whose shares are up 38% this year and an astounding 130% since the market’s plunge in April, is a way to benefit from the popularity of cryptocurrency without necessarily taking on as much risk. Coinbase is still a relatively small player with a global market share of 6.9% compared to market leader Binance$BNB.X ( ▲ 0.0% ) , which has a 38% share. But its prospects for continued growth are strong. To learn more, Big Business This Week editor Peter Green spoke with Chris Brendler, a senior research analyst at Rosenblatt Securities, who follows crypto exchanges for a living:
What is driving Coinbase’s stock performance?
Chris Brendler:The biggest thing is the end of the Security and Exchange Commission’s war on crypto. Coinbase is the blue-chip name in the space. If you’re going to get into crypto for the first time, you usually get a Coinbase account, and a lot of folks stay with Coinbase, like myself. On top of that, having the shackles taken off has allowed them to be more creative on products. They’ve announced a credit card and partnered with Shopify recently to offer customers the opportunity to shop with stablecoins. They also recently agreed to buy the world’s largest crypto options exchange,Deribit,based in the UAE. I would assume they’re going to bring Darabit to the U.S. as soon as possible. Those things are driving optimism about the company.
The share price has bounced around a lot. Will that continue?
Crypto tends to have pretty big swings in activity when it gets hot, then it fades from there. The more recent factor has been Circle, the issuer of the U.S. dollar stablecoin, USDC. Stablecoin legislation going through congress has people excited, and Coinbase gets a large chunk of Circle’s revenue. Circle and Coinbase started USDC together as a 50-50 consortium, then Coinbase sold its stake to Circle, and Circle started paying them a share of the revenues. Coinbase still gets a lot of the profitability out of that relationship: 100% of the interest income earned on USDC on their balance sheet, and 50% of everything else that they participate in with Circle.
What differentiates Coinbase from the other exchanges, and the failed ones like Mt. Gox or FTX?
From day one, they really committed to compliance and checking all the regulatory boxes they possibly could. Coinbase was one of the first exchanges to go public because it was built from the ground up to be regulator-friendly, making sure that they followed all the rules, like know your customer, and anti-money laundering stuff.
How does new regulation affect Coinbase?
We’re supposed to finally get crypto-centric regulations starting later this year. That will help solidify Coinbase’s advantage, but also encourage more institutional adoption now that the rules will be a lot clearer.
What about the dangers and downsides — hacks, for instance?
A lot of the headlines you read involve companies that potentially weren’t as serious about cybersecurity as Coinbase is. The bigger risk to me is macro and what happens to crypto appetites. Even if we have a supportive government, but we have more recession fears and tariff wars, and people are more nervous about the future, they’re just less likely to own what’s still considered a risk asset like Bitcoin or other crypto assets.
—Peter S. Green
[This interview has been condensed. Please note it in no way constitutes financial advice, and is instead an expression of opinion by the interviewee.]
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“Hot Commie Summer” looms in NYC
The preliminary victory of self-described socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani in the first round of New York City’s complex ranked-choice voting system has rattled the socially liberal and fiscally libertarian ranks of New York’s financial sector.
“It’s officially hot commie summer,”Dan Loeb, a vocal hedge fund manager, complained on X.
“The economic stability of the city is very much at risk as employers and taxpayers digest the possibility of a mayor who says he wants to further increase taxes and move us toward policies of socialism,”scolded Kathryn Wylde, who heads the Partnership for New York City, which views itself as the voice of the city’s business community.
Mamdani’s economic positions built him a following large enough to pull off one of the biggest upsets in recent Democratic Party history. But what’s got businesses’ backs up is that Mamdani has an aggressive plan to“make New York affordable again,”including free daycare, free buses (subways are a different question), city-owned supermarkets, and a freeze on rent hikes for the city’s million-or-so rent-stabilized apartments.
Mamdani won the primary because it turns out,most New Yorkers would like the city to be more affordable.Surveys show young families increasingly leave town because the rent is too high. So: will New York’s wealthiest move to Florida in protest? And if they do, will anybody miss them?
More importantly, will Mamdani drive the capitalist epicenter of America into socialist ruin? That’s the fear of the billionaires who backed his rival, ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who conceded before the vote counting was finished. The really big question, of course, is whether“Hot Commie Summer”is a bad thing, or a good one, and like most things in New York City it turns out that’s a matter of perspective.
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The Usual Suspects
- Del Monte gets canned: Del Monte’s U.S. canned food arm filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Tuesday, after a sudden drop in demand for canned peas and other mushy foods left it with massive inventory overhang, and $1 billion in debt. Interest on that debt has doubled over the past five years to $125 million, while the company lost $27 million on its operations. Del Monte’s U.S.operation, which has been around since 1886, is now owned by Asia-listed Del Monte Pacific.
- Apple’s Pitt stop: Apple $AAPL ( ▲ 0.52% ) got its first movie-house success last weekend with the release of Brad Pitt, ahem, vehicle “F1: The Movie,” starring Pitt as a comeback-kid racing driver. The film took in $55.6 million from 3,661 theaters in North America. But it’s still not clear if that film formula will make Apple a profit on the movie. It cost $250 million to make, and another $125 million to market worldwide.
- Hot yoga dispute: Lululemon Athletica $LULU ( ▲ 0.56% ) , the maker of $130 yoga pants, is suing Costco $COST ( ▲ 0.47% ) home of the $1.50 hot dog, alleging the discount superstore chain is ripping off its designs and selling the dupes for a fifteenth of the price. Lululemon’s $118 “Scuba” hoodie, the company says, also looks a lot like an $8 Half-Zip Pullover from Iconic Brands-owned Danskin $ICNB ( 0.0% ) Lululemon previously sued Peloton $PTON ( ▲ 0.45% ) over a line of workout clothes, and Peloton agreed to phase out certain items. Costco has declined comment so far.
- Clippy got his game face on: As AI takes over, Microsoft $MSFT ( ▲ 1.58% ) said it’s cutting another 9,000 workers, or about 4% of its workforce, in the third round of layoffs in the past year. In April, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told Meta $META ( ▲ 0.76% ) chief Mark Zuckerberg in an onstage conversation that 20% to 30% of the company’s code was now written by AI. Earlier in April, Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott said that in five years, “95% [of code] is going to be AI-generated,” and it seems Clippy has helped them with the math on their workforce since then.
- Google’s cash in-fusion: Google $GOOGL ( ▲ 0.5% ) says it’s agreed to buy a large amount of energy from a nuclear fusion reactor that a firm backed by Microsoft founder Bill Gates is building near Google’s Virginia data centers. Buying power directly from producers isn’t new, and Microsoft recently agreed to a $16 billion, 20-year deal to buy power from a Constellation Energy $CEG ( ▲ 1.71% ) nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island. What makes this special, though, is that no one has yet successfully used fusion to produce commercial supplies of electricity. Still, the start date for deliveries is about a decade away so they’ve got time to figure it out.
- Not so electric: Just as Tesla $TSLA ( ▼ 0.1% ) reported a 13.5% drop in second quarter deliveries, budding EV competitor Rivian $RIVN ( ▲ 1.55% ) said its deliveries dropped 22% to 10,661 in the second quarter from a year earlier and production at its Illinois plant plunged nearly 40%. Rivian said that’s because it’s “tooling up for a new line of cars,” but shares of Rivian are down 5% in the past five days.
Elon’s World
- On Monday, Elon “Ross Perot” Musk said he’d create a new political party with a focus on fiscal responsibility. On Tuesday, asked if he would deport Musk, Trump said: “I don’t know. We’ll have to take a look.” Trump also said he’ll look at how Musk got U.S. citizenship, and may end the government contracts that keep Starlink and SpaceX in business. The claws are out! Meanwhile it sounds like Beyonce’s been writing the lyrics for Tesla’s $TSLA sales situation: “Down, down, down, down.” Sales plunged 13.5% worldwide from a year earlier. Analysts blame Musk’s politics, the lackluster refresh of Tesla’s same old models, and Trump cutting EV subsidies. Shares in Tesla are down just under 3% in the past 5 days.
Trumplandia
- Media madness: CBS parent Paramount $PARA agreed to pay Donald Trump $16 million after Trump sued, initially asking for $10 billion for alleged electoral interference and for emotional harm when CBS aired two different clips of Kamala Harris talking about the Israel-Hamas conflict during last year’s presidential election campaign. The deal comes as Paramount awaits approval from Trump’s FCC on its sale to Skydance Media, bankrolled by Trump pal and Oracle $ORCL founder Larry Ellison. Legal experts call Trump’s claims spurious, and former CBS News President Andrew Heyward told NPR, “The critical issue is whether 60 Minutes can hold onto its tradition of fierce editorial integrity under new management.”
- Tariffs fail to materialize: On July 9, three months after the president first rolled back some tariffs, new massive import duties are due to l kick in. Trump promised 90 deals in 90 days, but that hasn’t happened. Instead, deals on tariffs for cars, clothing, steel, toys, drugs, food, chemicals, machinery, and even Bordeaux wines and Dijon mustard are stalled as the Commerce and Treasury Departments conduct hurried investigations into pricing and market behavior. It turns out arriving at negotiated and ratified trade treaties with more than 150 nations is probably an impossible task. Trade watchers say there’s no common set of principles, and U.S. trade partners find Trump keeps changing his mind on who to smack with tariffs. This past week’s spat with Canada over a digital services tax is Exhibit A. Or as Philip Luck, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the New York Times, “There doesn’t seem to be anybody in charge.”
- Powell tracker: It’s shaping up to be one of those weeks for beleaguered Fed Chair Jerome Powell. Late Wednesday, Trump, who made Powell chair back in 2018, posted that the central banker should “resign immediately.” The week’s drama began on Monday, when Trump posted a handwritten note to Powell—an oversized piece of paper carrying a list of global interest rates, with an all-caps, felt-tip-pen complaint: “You have cost the USA a fortune and continue to do so. You should lower the rate by A LOT!” Last week, Trump encouraged Powell to resign, calling him a “stubborn mule” suffering from “Trump derangement syndrome.” Trump wants the Fed to lower interest rates, but as Powell noted on Tuesday, it’s Trump‘s own tariffs that are tying the economy down.
- On Wednesday, Trump’s literal yes-man Bill Pulte, the Federal Housing Finance Agency boss, said Congress should investigate Powell for “his political bias, and his deceptive Senate testimony.” Powell’s term as chair runs until May 2026, and he can remain a governor of the Fed until 2028, when the constitution mandates the United States to have another presidential election.
The Short Stack
- The P.E. scrutiny boomerang: When Harvard grad turned MAGA Congressmember Elise Stefanik took a Trumpian dig at her alma mater, she may have just lit a firecracker under the entire world of private equity. Stefanik asked the SEC to investigate whether Harvard had accurately informed bondholders of its financial state, because with much of its vaunted $53 billion endowment tied up in private equity, there’s no way to know what those investments are truly worth until they hit the market. The problem is, the valuations Harvard relies on come from the private equity firms themselves, and the last thing they want is close scrutiny.
- Real lawsuits of Beverly Hills homes: Mauricio Umansky, the broker who found fame where reality TV meets real estate, is suing the National Association of Realtors, claiming it’s got an unfair monopoly on real estate listings, and its listing policies have harmed his own private listings business. Umansky has appeared on “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” “Dancing with the Stars,” and “Buying Beverly Hills.” He first filed his suit in 2020, then paused it while the NAR settled an antitrust suit over commission fixing. But it’s back on, now.
- Summer job blues: Turns out those teched-out teens do want to work, but they can’t find summer jobs. In May, the unemployment rate for teenagers rose to 13.4%, from 13% in April and 12.4% a year earlier, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Part of that’s due to a tighter labor market, and part of it’s due to companies having plenty of unemployed adults to choose from.
- An emerging U.S. market for chips (the snacking kind): Taking a page from their playbook for emerging markets, snack food makers are offering smaller, cheaper packages of chips and other snacks as cash-strapped customers buy less junk food and switch to private label brands. Mondelez International’s $MDLZ ( ▼ 0.82% ) Milka chocolate bar now has six sizes, selling at from $1 to $6. “Consumers are going into small pack sizes to optimize their absolute budget,” Mondelez Finance Chief Luca Zaramella told the Wall Street Journal.The idea is to hook consumers with the smaller, cheaper candy bars and chip bags, and then get them to buy bigger sizes.
Peter S. Green is a veteran reporter and editor who has spent more than two decades covering business and finance from Eastern Europe to New York City, and has worked for Bloomberg News, The New York Post, The New York Times and The Messenger. He lives in New York City and is always looking for the next big story.
