Coinbase (Coin) has its own BTC strategy in the business balance sheet, but it is not a Bitcoin maximalist play like that of Michael Saylor’s strategy (MSTR).
During the call for the first quarter results of the company 2025, the financial director Alesia Haas revealed that Coinbase had bought $ 150 million in crypto, “with Bitcoin predominance”, carrying its long -term investment portfolio to $ 1.3 billion, or 25% of net cash.
Haas, however, did everything possible to draw a line between Coinbase and the companies that explicitly attach their business identity to Bitcoin in the balance sheet.
“To be clear, we are an operating business,” she said. “But we invest alongside space.”
In other words, Coinbase does not bet the company on Bitcoin. During a call for questions and answers with retail investors, Armstrong said there was a temptation when it started to put a lot of BTC on the balance sheet, but it was too risky. The crypto is volatile and, at the time, Coinbase was too young from a business to take this risk.
Now, as a giant listed, things have changed, but it is still not necessary to go all on Bitcoin. Coinbase allocates the benefits of operations in cryptographic assets, in the same way as the way in which a company of raw materials could accumulate raw materials which it deeply understands. This decision is less Michael Saylor and more recycling of capital aligned by the sector.
In fact, Coinbase did not even deceive the purchase in his shareholder letter. The news only surfaced in response to the question of a detailed shareholder on “the accumulation of hard crypto reserve assets”.
CEO Brian Armstrong did not speak directly about purchases, but he offered a philosophical context. Coinbase, he reminded investors, does not dab in the crypto-it’s crypto.
“We focus on crypto from the start, 12 years ago, and we continue to be concentrated there,” said Armstrong. “The crypto eats financial services.”
For Armstrong, the purchase of BTC is a by-product of conviction and operational alignment and not a title game, a treasure pivot or an activist bet.
Coinbase does not hold a BTC to point out to the markets a wider conviction, or to become a proxy like MSTR. Behind the accounting language is something deeper: a long -term bet according to which Bitcoin, like building the rails below, is simply part of the work of Coinbase.
It is not a cash strategy – it is something in the middle.
