Coinbase Begins Selling IPO Shares: Crypto Exchanges Are Ready to Take Over Brokerage Business

Coinbase is transitioning from a crypto exchange into a comprehensive financial platform that also happens to handle crypto.

Written by: Xiao Bing

On September 21, Coinbase announced that eligible U.S. users can directly apply for IPO allocations within the App. The first offering is smart ring company Oura, where users can apply to buy shares at the offering price before the stock begins trading publicly.

This represents the latest step in Coinbase's "Everything Exchange" strategy.

Over the past 12 months, this crypto exchange has rolled out equity and ETF trading, options trading, and Pre-IPO derivatives, while also filing a registration notice for equity perpetual contracts with the SEC. Now, it is reaching into Wall Street's most exclusive territory: primary-market IPO allocations.

The COIN stock hit a four-month high on the same day.

Oura IPO: What Role Did Coinbase Play?

First, clarify a key detail: Coinbase's role in this transaction was a "selling group member", not an underwriter.

Oura's IPO was co-led by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Robinhood Securities participated in the deal as an underwriter for the first time. Coinbase distributed a portion of the shares through its subsidiary, Coinbase Capital Markets (a FINRA-registered broker-dealer), acting strictly as an agent. It assumed no underwriting risk, held no inventory, and did not participate in pricing.