Institutions are looking for ‘1000x’ opportunities in crypto: Coinbase
Coinbase Institutional’s David Duong looked at how crypto performed in January and explains where crypto’s growing
Burdun Iliya/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks
This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.
Coinbase Institutional and Glassnode released a report focused on the trends we’ve seen so far this year. Some of the data is somewhat expected, but there were also some fun nuggets that show just where crypto is growing.
Take, for example, this chart from a16z.
Source: Coinbase Institutional, a16z
See how large January was in comparison to other months? Perhaps it’s not jaw-dropping, but that’s pretty dang impressive. And before you ask, no this data doesn’t reflect any of the wallets opened by people when TRUMP dropped.
Coinbase Institutional’s David Duong explained to me that the chart was produced prior to the launch of TRUMP. Though, he added, the president’s memecoin “was also pretty impressive [because] there are a lot of market players who had never touched crypto before who adopted crypto mainly to trade [TRUMP].”
But the attention shouldn’t just be on wallets or memecoins, let’s give altcoins their moment to shine too.
Not time for an altcoin season just yet.
Duong thinks that bitcoin’s selfishly been hogging the attention, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for altcoins. He thinks folks are still looking for the “1000x opportunity in the space.”
Perhaps that means that we’ll see more newcomers enter the playing field, challenging the “blue chip names” and the dino coins from the early 2020s.
“When it comes to smart contract platforms or other things, I think people are content with having like ETH, SOL and SUI, but many people are kind of saying, ‘Yes, but what other platforms are out there, what could come next?’ So I think that’s still a theme now that people are playing the space again,” he explained.
A side effect of this: Sectors are becoming more and more clear within crypto. As Duong explained, we’re seeing memecoins fully carve their own path and separate from other parts of crypto while DeFi is starting to see its own pickup following the shift in the regulatory environment.
AI agents are a good example of the branching out we’re seeing, Duong added, given that they’re focused on the “attention economy” inside of crypto. On the other hand, DEXs are close to 20% of the volume of centralized exchanges.
We’re so back.
“Many of the market players are trying to assess the market at the moment, so they are looking at the sectors, and they know what could be attention-grabbing or getting more revenue. But now it’s a question of … what’s going to actually garner the attention?”
So many trends to watch, so little time.
Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:
- The Breakdown: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.
- 0xResearch: Alpha in your inbox. Think like an analyst.
- Empire: Crypto news and analysis to start your day.
- Forward Guidance: The intersection of crypto, macro and policy.
- The Drop: Apps, games, memes and more.
- Lightspeed: All things Solana.
- Supply Shock: Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin.
