COIN

Due to the highly volatile nature of the cryptoeconomy and the prices of crypto assets, our operating results have, and will continue to, fluctuate significantly from quarter to quarter in accordance with market sentiments and movements in the broader cryptoeconomy. onchain economy. Our operating results will continue to fluctuate significantly as a result of a variety of factors, many of which are unpredictable and in certain instances are outside of our control, including:

•our ability to continue to diversify and grow our subscription and services revenue, including our stablecoin revenue;

•market conditions of, and overall sentiment towards, the cryptoeconomy; crypto;

•macroeconomic conditions, including interest rates, inflation, changes in tariffs and trade restrictions, extended U.S. federal government shutdowns, and instability in the global banking system;

In view of the rapidly evolving nature of our business and the cryptoeconomy, volatility of the markets in which we operate, period-to-period comparisons of our operating results may not be meaningful, and you should not rely upon them as an indication of future performance. Quarterly and annual expenses reflected in our financial statements may be significantly different from historical or projected rates. Our operating results in one or more future quarters may fall below the expectations of securities analysts and investors. As a result, the trading price of our Class A common stock may increase or decrease significantly.

We generate a large portion of our total revenue from transaction fees on our platform in connection with the purchase, sale, and trading of crypto assets by our customers. Transaction revenue is based on transaction fees that are either a flat fee or a percentage of the value of each transaction. For our consumer trading product, we also charge a spread to ensure that we are able to settle purchases and sales at the prices we quote to customers. We also generate a large portion of total revenue from our subscription and services, and such revenue has grown over time, primarily due to growth in stablecoin revenue in connection with USDC. payment stablecoins. Declines in the volume of crypto asset transactions, the price of crypto assets, or market liquidity for crypto assets generally may result in lower total revenue to us.

•market conditions of, and overall sentiment towards, crypto assets and the cryptoeconomy, assets, including, but not limited to, as a result of actions taken by or developments of other companies in the cryptoeconomy; our industry;

•negative publicity and events relating to the cryptoeconomy; onchain economy;

•adverse legal proceedings or regulatory enforcement actions, judgments, or settlements impacting cryptoeconomy industry participants;

•regulatory or legislative changes, scrutiny and updates affecting the cryptoeconomy; onchain economy;

•the liquidity and credit risk of other crypto platforms and other participants of the cryptoeconomy; onchain economy;

Our net revenue may be concentrated in a limited number of areas. Within transaction revenue and subscription and services revenue, a meaningful concentration is from transactions in Bitcoin and Ethereum and stablecoin revenue in connection with USDC, payment stablecoins, respectively. If revenue from these areas declines and is not replaced by new demand for crypto assets or other products and services, our business, operating results, and financial condition could be adversely affected.

While we support a diverse portfolio of crypto assets for trading, staking and custody, our net revenue is concentrated in a limited number of areas, such as transactions in Bitcoin and Ethereum for transaction revenue and stablecoin revenue in connection with USDC payment stablecoins for subscription and services revenue. For the years ended December 31, 2024 2025 and 2023, 2024, we derived a meaningful amount of our net revenue from transaction fees generated in connection with the trading of Bitcoin and Ethereum; these trading pairs drove approximately 44% 45% and 54% 46% of total Trading Volume on our platform during these periods, respectively. In addition to the factors impacting the broader cryptoeconomy onchain economy described in this section, our revenue may be adversely affected if the markets for Bitcoin and Ethereum deteriorate or if their prices decline, including as a result of the following factors:

•developments in mathematics and technology, including in digital computing, algebraic geometry, and quantum computing that could result or be perceived to result in the cryptography being used by Bitcoin and Ethereum becoming insecure or ineffective;

•adverse legal proceedings or regulatory enforcement actions, judgments, or settlements impacting cryptoeconomy industry participants;

•liquidity and credit risk issues experienced by other crypto platforms and other participants of the cryptoeconomy; onchain economy; and

Our subscription and services revenue has grown over time to represent a more meaningful amount of our revenue, primarily due to growth in stablecoin revenue received in connection with USDC. payment stablecoins. Such revenue depends on a variety of factors, including demand for our subscription and services offerings, demand for USDC, payment stablecoins, the overall USDC payment stablecoin market capitalization, the balance mix of USDC on our platform, payment stablecoin balances held in Coinbase products as compared to that held off-platform, interest rates, and our ongoing relationships with third parties, such as Circle. If such factors are negatively impacted, our business, operating results, and financial condition could be adversely affected.

The level of prevailing short-term interest rates affects our profitability because we derive a large portion of our revenue from interest earned on funds deposited with us by our customers which we hold on their behalf in custodial accounts at banks financial institutions and from stablecoin revenue, which is derived from interest earned on payment stablecoins, such as USDC reserve balances, as well as from interest earned on corporate cash and other cash equivalents. Higher interest rates increase the amount of interest and finance fee income and stablecoin revenue earned from these activities. When short-term interest rates decline, our revenue derived from interest correspondingly declines. Further, because stablecoin revenue from USDC payment stablecoins has become an increased portion of our subscription and services revenue, if interest rates were to significantly decline from levels reached in the current interest rate environment, decline, our net revenue could decline. Conversely, when interest rates increase, investors may choose to shift their asset allocations, which could negatively impact our stock price or the cryptoeconomy onchain economy more generally.

•the governance of many decentralized blockchain networks, including L2 blockchains like Base, Base Chain (formerly Base), is by voluntary consensus and open competition, and many developers are not directly compensated for their contributions. As a result, there may be a lack of consensus or clarity on the governance of any particular crypto network, a lack of incentives for developers to maintain or develop the network, and other unforeseen issues, any of which could result in unexpected or undesirable errors, bugs, or changes, or stymie such network’s utility and ability to respond to challenges and grow; and

Although we have developed systems and processes designed to protect the data we manage, prevent data loss and other security breaches, effectively respond to known and potential risks, and expect to continue to expend significant resources to bolster these protections, there can be no assurance that these security measures will provide absolute security or prevent breaches or attacks. We have experienced from time to time, and may experience in the future, breaches of our security measures due to human error, malfeasance, insider threats, system errors or vulnerabilities, or other irregularities. Unauthorized parties have attempted, and we expect that they will continue to attempt, to gain access to our systems and facilities, as well as those of our customers, partners, and third-party service providers, through various means, including hacking, social engineering, phishing, and attempting to fraudulently induce individuals (including employees, service providers, and our customers) into disclosing usernames, passwords, payment card information, or other sensitive information, which may in turn be used to access our information technology systems and customers’ crypto assets. As we grow our offering of products and services, including options and perpetual swaps, we face increased exposure to cyberattacks through third parties. Threats can come from a variety of sources, including criminal hackers, hacktivists, state-sponsored intrusions, industrial espionage, and insiders. Certain threat actors may be supported by significant financial and technological resources, making them even more sophisticated and difficult to detect. We may also acquire other companies that expose us to unexpected security risks or increase costs to improve the security posture of the acquired company. Further, there has been an increase in such threat actor activities as a result of the increased prevalence of hybrid and remote working arrangements in recent years. As a result, our costs and the resources we devote to protecting against these advanced threats and their consequences may continue to increase over time.

Our business is subject to extensive laws, rules, regulations, policies, orders, determinations, directives, treaties, and legal and regulatory interpretations and guidance in the markets in which we operate, including those governing financial services and banking, federal government contractors, trust companies, securities, derivative transactions and markets, broker-dealers and alternative trading systems (“ATS”), commodities, credit, crypto asset custody, exchange, and transfer, cross-border and domestic money and crypto asset transmission, commercial lending, usury, foreign currency exchange, privacy, data governance, data protection, cybersecurity, fraud detection, payment services (including payment processing and settlement services), consumer protection, escheatment, antitrust and competition, bankruptcy, tax, anti-bribery, economic and trade sanctions, anti-money laundering, and counter-terrorist financing. Many of these legal and regulatory regimes were adopted prior to the advent of the internet, mobile technologies, crypto assets, generative artificial intelligence (“AI”) and related technologies. As a result, some applicable laws and regulations do not contemplate or address unique issues associated with the cryptoeconomy, onchain economy, are subject to significant uncertainty, and vary widely across U.S. federal, state, and local and international jurisdictions. These legal and regulatory regimes, including the laws, rules, and regulations thereunder, evolve frequently and may be modified, interpreted, and applied in an inconsistent manner from one jurisdiction to another, and may conflict with one another. Moreover, the complexity and evolving nature of our business and the significant uncertainty surrounding the regulation of the cryptoeconomy onchain economy requires us to exercise our judgment as to whether certain laws, rules, and regulations apply to us, and it is possible that governmental bodies and regulators may disagree with our conclusions. To the extent we have not complied with such laws, rules, and regulations, we could be subject to significant fines, revocation of licenses, limitations on or temporary or permanent suspensions of our products and services, reputational harm, and other regulatory consequences, each of which may be significant and could adversely affect our business, operating results, and financial condition.

Governmental and regulatory bodies, including in the United States, may introduce new policies, laws, and regulations relating to crypto assets and the cryptoeconomy onchain economy generally, and crypto asset platforms in particular. Other companies’ failures of risk management and other control functions, including those that played a role in the 2022 Events, functions could contribute to stricter oversight of crypto asset platforms and the cryptoeconomy. onchain economy. Furthermore, new interpretations of existing laws and regulations may be issued by such bodies or the judiciary, which may adversely impact the development of the cryptoeconomy onchain economy as a whole and our legal and regulatory status in particular by changing how we operate our business, how our products and services are regulated, and what products or services we and our competitors can offer, requiring changes to our compliance and risk mitigation measures, imposing new licensing requirements, or imposing a total ban on certain crypto asset transactions, as has occurred in certain jurisdictions in the past. For example, in the past few years, regulatory developments in the area of anti-money laundering, recordkeeping and prudential regulatory compliance include the Travel Rule requiring transmission of information with crypto transfers. This and similar regulations increase our compliance costs, may require operational changes, and could subject us to sanctions for technical violations.

Moreover, we offer and may in the future offer products and services that may depend on novel forms of customer engagement and interaction delivered via blockchain protocols, particularly as it relates to management of token transaction smart contracts, liquid staking, asset tracking, or other applications. We may also offer products and services whose functionality or value depends on our ability to develop, integrate, or otherwise interact with such applications within the bounds of our legal and compliance obligations. The legal and regulatory landscape for such products, including the law governing the rights and obligations between and among smart contract developers and users and the extent to which such relationships entail regulated activity is uncertain and rapidly evolving. are fluid. Our interaction with those applications, and the interaction of other blockchain users with any smart contracts or assets we may generate or control, could present legal, operational, reputational, and regulatory risks for our business.

We may be further subject to administrative sanctions for technical violations or customer attrition if the user experience suffers as a result. As another example, the extension of anti-money laundering requirements to certain crypto-related activities by the European Union’s Fifth Money Laundering Directive, as updated by the European Union’s Sixth Money Laundering Directive, Directive has increased the regulatory compliance burden for our business in Europe and, as a result of the fragmented approach to the implementation of its provisions, resulted in distinct and divergent national licensing and registration regimes for us in different E.U. member states. Among other provisions, Additionally, MiCA introduces a comprehensive authorization and compliance regime for crypto asset service providers and a disclosure regime for the issuers of certain crypto assets, which is expected to will impact our operations in the European Union, including through localization requirements. requirements, due to the obligations associated with our MiCA license (obtained in June 2025).

Because we have offered and will continue to offer a variety of innovative products and services to our customers, many of our offerings are subject to significant regulatory uncertainty and we from time to time face regulatory inquiries regarding our current and planned products. For instance, we purchase USDC, a stablecoin redeemable on a one-to-one basis for U.S. dollars, from Circle and sell it to customers on our platform. The regulatory treatment of fiat-backed stablecoins is highly uncertain and has drawn significant attention from legislative and regulatory bodies around the world. The issuance, purchase, and sale of such stablecoins may implicate a variety of banking, deposit, money transmission, prepaid access and stored value, anti-money laundering, commodities, securities, sanctions, and other laws and regulations in the United States and in other jurisdictions. There are substantial uncertainties on as to how these requirements would apply in practice, and we may face substantial compliance costs to operationalize and comply with these rules. In July 2025, the United States enacted the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act (the “GENIUS Act”), which establishes a federal regulatory framework for “payment stablecoins” and their issuers and custodians. As a distributor and ecosystem partner of stablecoins, Coinbase may directly and indirectly be subject to these requirements. Additionally, our event contract products, which allow customers to trade on the outcome of future events, are subject to complex and evolving legal and regulatory frameworks and interpretation. Event contracts, whether offered by us or others, have drawn scrutiny from federal and state regulators and resulted in litigation that we are party to as well as litigation against other companies that offer event contracts. Regulators and authorities in various jurisdictions may assert that these offerings constitute gambling, sports betting, or other regulated activities under state or local laws, rather than federally regulated financial instruments. For example, courts may conclude that state laws attempting to prevent the trading of CFTC-regulated sports-related event contracts are not preempted by the CEA, or that outcome based event contracts are not “swaps” falling within the jurisdiction of the CFTC, which could impact our ability to offer certain event contracts in one or more states and could lead to adverse litigation and regulatory actions against us.

Certain products and services offered by us that we believe are not subject to regulatory oversight, or are only subject to certain regulatory regimes, such as the Base App (formerly Coinbase Wallet, Wallet), a standalone mobile application that allows customers to manage their own private keys and store their crypto assets directly on their mobile devices, may cause us to be deemed to be engaged in a form of regulated activity for which licensure is required or cause us to become subject to new and additional forms of regulatory oversight. We also offer various staking, rewards, and lending products, all of which are subject to significant regulatory uncertainty, and could implicate a variety of laws and regulations worldwide. For example, there is regulatory uncertainty regarding the status of our staking, lending, rewards, and other yield-generating activities under the U.S. federal and state securities laws. While we have implemented policies and procedures, including geofencing for certain products and services, designed to help monitor for and ensure compliance with existing and new laws and regulations, there can be no assurance that we and our employees, contractors, and agents will not violate or otherwise fail to comply with such laws and regulations. To the extent that we or our employees, contractors, or agents are deemed or alleged to have violated or failed to comply with any laws or regulations, including related interpretations, orders, determinations, directives, or guidance, we or they could be subject to a litany of civil, criminal, and administrative fines, penalties, orders and actions, including being required to suspend or terminate the offering of certain products and services. Moreover, to the extent our customers nevertheless access our platform, products or services outside of jurisdictions where we have obtained required governmental licenses and authorization, we could similarly be subject to a variety of civil, criminal, and administrative fines, penalties, orders and actions as a result of such activity.

Due to our business activities, we are subject to ongoing examinations, oversight, and reviews and currently are, and expect in the future, to be subject to investigations and inquiries, by U.S. federal and state regulators and foreign financial service regulators, many of which have broad discretion to audit and examine our business. We are periodically subject to audits and examinations by these regulatory authorities. As a result of findings from these audits and examinations, regulators have, are, have required, are requiring, and may in the future require us to take certain actions, including amending, updating, or revising our compliance measures from time to time, limiting the kinds of customers that we provide services to, changing, terminating, or delaying our licenses and the introduction of our existing or new product and services, and undertaking further external audit or being subject to further regulatory scrutiny, including investigations and inquiries. We have received, and may in the future receive, examination reports citing violations of rules and regulations, inadequacies in existing compliance programs, and requiring us to enhance certain practices with respect to our compliance program, including due diligence, monitoring, training, reporting, and recordkeeping. Implementing appropriate measures to properly remediate these examination findings may require us to incur significant costs, and if we fail to properly remediate any of these examination findings, we could face civil litigation, significant fines, damage awards, forced removal of certain employees including members of our executive team, barring of certain employees from participating in our business in whole or in part, revocation of existing licenses, limitations on existing and new products and services, reputational harm, negative impact to our existing relationships with regulators, exposure to criminal liability, or other regulatory consequences. Further, we believe increasingly strict legal and regulatory requirements and additional regulatory investigations and enforcement, any of which could occur or intensify, may continue to result in changes to our business, as well as increased costs, and supervision and examination for ourselves, our agents, and service providers. Moreover, new laws, regulations, or interpretations may result in additional litigation, regulatory investigations, and enforcement or other actions, including preventing or delaying us from offering certain products or services offered by our competitors or could impact how we offer such products and services. Adverse changes to, or our failure to comply with, any laws and regulations have had, and may continue to have, an adverse effect on our reputation and brand and our business, operating results, and financial condition.

We operate in a highly competitive industry and we compete against unregulated or less regulated companies and companies with greater financial and other resources, and our business, operating results, and financial condition could be adversely affected if we are unable to compete effectively.

The crypto Our industry is highly innovative, rapidly evolving, and characterized by healthy competition, experimentation, changing customer needs, frequent introductions of new products and services, and subject to uncertain and evolving industry and regulatory requirements. We expect competition to intensify in the future as existing and new competitors introduce new products or enhance existing products. We face significant competition from a variety of companies around the world, ranging from crypto-native companies, including decentralized exchanges, to large traditional financial services incumbents and financial technology providers. Our main competition falls into the following categories:

•the ability to trade crypto assets and offer products and services services, including non-crypto financial products and services, that we do not support or offer on our platform (due to constraints from regulatory authorities, our banking financial institution partners, and other factors) such as tokens that constitute securities or derivative instruments under U.S. or foreign laws;

We compete against an increasing number of decentralized and noncustodial platforms. On these platforms, users can interact directly with a market-making smart contract or onchain trading mechanism to earn crypto assets or to exchange one type of crypto asset for another without any centralized intermediary. We have seen increased interest in certain decentralized platforms with transaction volumes rivaling our own platform on multiple occasions, and expect interest in decentralized and noncustodial platforms to grow further as the industry develops. If the demand for decentralized platforms grows and we are unable to compete with these decentralized and noncustodial platforms, including, for example, if we fail to achieve sufficient decentralization and scaling of Base Chain (formerly Base) as an L2, our business, operating results, and financial condition could be adversely affected.

As we expand and localize our international activities, we have become increasingly obligated to comply with the laws, rules, regulations, policies, and legal interpretations of both the jurisdictions in which we operate and those into which we offer services on a cross-border basis. For instance, financial regulators outside the United States have increased their scrutiny of crypto asset exchanges over time, such as by requiring crypto asset exchanges operating in their local jurisdictions to be regulated and licensed under local laws. Moreover, laws regulating financial services, the internet, mobile technologies, crypto, AI, and related technologies outside of the United States are highly evolving, extensive and often impose different, more specific, or even conflicting obligations on us, as well as broader liability. In addition, we are required to comply with laws and regulations related to economic sanctions and export controls enforced by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) and the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security, and U.S. anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing laws and regulations, enforced by FinCEN and certain state financial services regulators. U.S. sanctions and export control laws and regulations generally restrict dealings by persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction with certain jurisdictions that are the target of comprehensive embargoes, currently the Crimea Region, the Donetsk People’s Republic, and the Luhansk People’s Republic of Ukraine, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Syria, as well as with persons, entities, and governments identified on certain prohibited party lists. Moreover, as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the United States, the E.U., the United Kingdom, and other jurisdictions have imposed wide-ranging sanctions on Russia and Belarus and persons and entities associated with Russia and Belarus. There can be no certainty regarding whether such governments or other governments will impose additional sanctions, or other economic or military measures against Russia or Belarus. We have continued to engage in activity in Russia and Belarus and with customers associated with these countries. At the same time, we have implemented additional processes and procedures to comply with these new sanctions. However, our activity in Russia and Belarus and with these customers associated with these countries subjects us to further exposure to sanctions as they are released. We have an OFAC compliance program in place that includes monitoring of IP addresses to identify prohibited jurisdictions and of blockchain addresses that have either been identified by OFAC as prohibited or that otherwise are believed by us to be associated with prohibited persons or jurisdictions. Nonetheless, there can be no guarantee that our compliance program will prevent transactions with particular persons or addresses or prevent every potential violation of OFAC sanctions. From time to time, we have submitted voluntary disclosures to OFAC or responded to administrative subpoenas from OFAC. To date, none of those proceedings has resulted in a monetary penalty or finding of violation. Any present or future government inquiries relating to sanctions could result in negative consequences for us, including costs related to government investigations, financial penalties, and harm to our reputation. The impact on us related to such matters could be substantial. Although we have implemented controls, and are working to implement additional controls and screening tools designed to prevent sanctions violations, there is no guarantee that we will not inadvertently provide access to our products and services to sanctioned parties or jurisdictions in the future.

Regulators worldwide frequently study each other’s approaches to the regulation of the cryptoeconomy. our industry. Consequently, developments in any jurisdiction may influence other jurisdictions. New developments in one jurisdiction may be extended to additional services and other jurisdictions. As a result, the risks created by any new law or regulation in one jurisdiction are magnified by the potential that they may be replicated, affecting our business in another place or involving another service. Conversely, if regulations diverge worldwide, we may face difficulty adjusting our products, services, and other aspects of our business with the same effect. These risks are heightened as we face increased competitive pressure from other similarly situated businesses that engage in regulatory arbitrage to avoid the compliance costs associated with regulatory changes.

We have been, currently are, and may from time to time become subject to claims, arbitrations, individual and class action lawsuits with respect to a variety of matters, including employment, consumer protection, intellectual property, privacy, information security, data protection, advertising, and securities. In addition, we have been, currently are, and may from time to time become subject to, government and regulatory investigations, inquiries, actions or requests, other proceedings and enforcement actions alleging violations of laws, rules, and regulations, both foreign and domestic. For a description of such our material litigation, regulatory investigations, and other proceedings, see Note 21. Commitments and Contingencies of the Notes to our Consolidated Financial Statements included in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K. The scope, determination, and impact of claims, lawsuits, government and regulatory investigations, enforcement actions, disputes, and proceedings to which we are subject cannot be predicted with certainty and may result in:

Because of our large customer base, actions against us may claim large monetary damages, even if the alleged per-customer harm is small or non-existent. From time to time, we receive letters alleging claims on behalf of our users. Due to our large customer base, the ongoing defense and resolution or settlement of these alleged claims could be material and we may incur significant expenses associated with arbitrating or litigating the claims. Moreover, to the extent that a deterioration of the crypto asset market occurs for a prolonged period, occurs, large platforms like us may become subject to or the target of increased litigation and additional government and regulatory scrutiny. Regardless of the outcome, any such matters could adversely affect our business, operating results, and financial condition because of legal costs, diversion of management resources, reputational damage, and other factors.

Our industry has been characterized by many rapid, significant, and disruptive products and services in recent years. These include decentralized applications, DeFi, yield farming, non-fungible tokens (“NFTs”), NFTs, play-to-earn games, lending, staking and re-staking, token wrapping, network and governance tokens, innovative programs to attract customers such as transaction fee mining programs, initiatives to attract traders such as trading competitions, airdrops and giveaways, staking reward programs, “layer 2” blockchain networks, smart contract wallets, and novel cryptocurrency fundraising and distribution schemes, such as “initial exchange offerings.” We expect new services and technologies to continue to emerge and evolve, which may be superior to, or render obsolete, the products and services that we currently provide. For example, decentralized networks and other disruptive technologies such as generative AI may fundamentally alter the use of our products or services in unpredictable ways. We cannot predict the effects of new services and technologies on our business. However, our ability to grow our customer base and net revenue will depend heavily on our ability to innovate and create successful new products and services, both independently and in conjunction with third-party developers. In particular, developing and incorporating new products and services into our business may require substantial expenditures, take considerable time, and ultimately may not be successful. Any new products or services could fail to attract customers, generate revenue, or perform or integrate well with third-party applications and platforms. In addition, our ability to adapt and compete with new products and services may be inhibited by regulatory requirements and general uncertainty in the law, constraints by our banking financial institution partners and payment processors, third-party intellectual property rights, or other factors. Moreover, we must continue to enhance our technical infrastructure and other technology offerings to remain competitive and maintain a platform that has the required functionality, performance, capacity, security, and speed to attract and retain customers, including large, institutional, high-frequency and high-volume traders. As a result, we expect to incur significant costs and expenses to develop and upgrade our technical infrastructure to meet the evolving needs of the industry. Our success will depend on our ability to develop, scale, and incorporate new offerings and adapt to technological changes and evolving industry practices. If we are unable to do so in a timely or cost-effective manner, our ability to successfully compete, to retain existing customers, and to attract new customers may be impacted and our business, operating results, and financial condition could be adversely affected.

The SEC and its staff have taken the position that evolving positions as to whether a range of crypto assets, products and services fall within the definition of a “security” under the U.S. federal securities laws. Despite the SEC being the principal federal securities law regulator in the United States, whether or not an asset, product, or service is a security or constitutes a securities offering under federal securities laws is ultimately determined by a federal court. The legal test for determining whether any given crypto asset, product, or service is an investment contract security was set forth in the 1946 Supreme Court case SEC v. W.J. Howey Co. and whether any given crypto asset, product, or service is a note in the 1990 Supreme Court case Reves v. Ernst & Young. The legal tests for determining whether any given crypto asset, product, or service is a security requires a highly complex, fact-driven analysis. Accordingly, whether any given crypto asset, product or service would be ultimately deemed by a federal court to be a security is uncertain and difficult to predict notwithstanding the conclusions of the SEC or any conclusions we may draw based on our risk-based assessment regarding the likelihood that a particular crypto asset, product or service could be deemed a “security” or “securities offering” under applicable laws. The SEC generally does not provide advance guidance or confirmation on its assessment of the status of any particular crypto asset, product, or service as a security. Furthermore, in our view, statements by the SEC and its staff have appeared contradictory at times. It is also possible that the change in the governing administration and the appointment of new SEC commissioners will substantially impact the approach to enforcement by the SEC and its staff.

The SEC has also recently brought enforcement actions and entered into settlements with numerous cryptoeconomy industry participants alleging that certain digital assets are securities, including the June 2023 SEC Complaint. securities. In 2025, the SEC dismissed many of those enforcement actions. These statements, framework and enforcement actions are not rules or regulations of the SEC and are not binding on the SEC. As noted above, whether any given crypto asset, product or service would be ultimately deemed by a federal court to be a security is uncertain and difficult to predict. Moreover, the SEC and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (the “CFTC”) and their senior officials have, at times, taken conflicting positions in speeches and enforcement actions as to whether a particular crypto asset is a security or commodity. In January 2025, the SEC launched a crypto task force dedicated to developing a comprehensive and clear regulatory framework for crypto assets. While newly formed, its goal is to clarify federal securities laws for crypto, recommend practical policies, foster innovation, and protect investors. Furthermore, on November 12, 2025, SEC Chairman Atkins delivered an address at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, in which he highlighted the view that most crypto assets are not securities, and that the SEC would coordinate with the CFTC on a token taxonomy that includes “digital commodities.”

Several foreign jurisdictions have taken a broad-based approach to classifying crypto assets, products and services as “securities,” while other foreign jurisdictions, such as Switzerland, Malta, and Singapore, jurisdictions have adopted a narrower approach. As a result, certain crypto assets, products or services may be deemed to be a “security” under the laws of some jurisdictions but not others. Various foreign jurisdictions may, in the future, adopt additional laws, regulations, or directives that affect the characterization of crypto assets, products or services as “securities.”

If an applicable regulatory authority or a court, in either case having final determinative authority on the topic, were to determine that a supported crypto asset, product or service currently offered, sold, or traded on our platform is a security, we would not be able to offer such crypto asset for trading, or product or service on our platform, until we are able to do so in a compliant manner. A determination by the SEC, a state or foreign regulatory authority, or a court that an asset that we currently support for trading on our platform, or product or service that we offer on our platform, constitutes a security may result in us removing that crypto asset from or ceasing to offer that product or service on our platform, and may also result in us determining that it is advisable to remove assets from our platform, or to cease offering products and services on our platform, that have similar characteristics to the asset, product or service that was alleged or determined to be a security. Alternatively, we may determine not to remove a particular crypto asset from Coinbase Spot Market or to continue to offer a product or service on our platform even if the SEC or another regulator alleges that the crypto asset, product or service is a security, pending a final judicial determination as to that crypto asset, product or service’s proper characterization, and the fact that we waited for a final judicial determination would generally not preclude penalties or sanctions against us for our having previously made our platform available for trading that crypto asset or offering that product or service on our platform without registering as a national securities exchange or ATS or registering tokens that we may issue, such as our cbETH and cbBTC tokens or our staking services, with the SEC. As such, we could be subject to judicial or administrative sanctions for failing to offer or sell the crypto asset, product or service in compliance with the registration requirements, or for acting as a broker, dealer, or national securities exchange without appropriate registration, including in connection with the June 2023 SEC Complaint. registration. Such an action could result in injunctions, cease and desist orders, as well as civil monetary penalties, fines, and disgorgement, criminal liability, and reputational harm. Customers that traded such supported crypto asset on our platform and suffered trading losses could also seek to rescind a transaction that we facilitated on the basis that it was conducted in violation of applicable law, which could subject us to significant liability. We may also be required to cease facilitating transactions in the supported crypto asset other than via our licensed subsidiaries, which could negatively impact our business, operating results, and financial condition. Additionally, the SEC has brought and may in the future bring enforcement actions against other cryptoeconomy industry participants and their product offerings and services that may cause us to modify or discontinue a product offering or service on our platform. If we were to modify or discontinue any product offering or service or remove any assets from trading on our platform for any reason, our decision may be unpopular with users, may reduce our ability to attract and retain customers (especially if similar products, services or such assets continue to be offered or traded on unregulated exchanges, which includes many of our competitors), and could adversely affect our business, operating results, and financial condition.

Further, if Bitcoin, Ethereum, stablecoins or any other supported crypto asset is deemed to be a security under any U.S. federal, state, or foreign jurisdiction, or in a proceeding in a court of law or otherwise, it may have adverse consequences for such supported crypto asset. For instance, all transactions in such supported crypto asset would have to be registered with the SEC or other foreign authority, or conducted in accordance with an exemption from registration, which could severely limit its liquidity, usability and transactability. Moreover, the networks on which such supported crypto assets are utilized may be required to be regulated as securities intermediaries, and subject to applicable rules, which could effectively render the network impracticable for its existing purposes. Further, it could draw negative publicity and a decline in the general acceptance of the crypto asset. Also, it may make it difficult for such supported crypto asset to be traded, cleared, and custodied as compared to other crypto assets that are not considered to be securities. Specifically, even if transactions in such supported crypto asset were registered with the SEC or conducted in accordance with an exemption from registration, the current intermediary-based framework for securities trading, clearance and settlement is not consistent with the operations of the crypto asset market. For example, the SEC has not permitted public permissionless blockchain-based clearance and settlement systems for securities.

Loss of a critical banking financial institution or insurance relationship could adversely affect our business, operating results, and financial condition.

We rely on bank financial institution relationships to provide our platform and custodial services. In particular, customer cash holdings on our platform are held with one or more of our multiple banking partners. financial institutions. As a registered money services business with FinCEN under the Bank Secrecy Act, as amended by the USA

As a registered money services business with FinCEN under the Bank Secrecy Act, as amended by the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, and its implementing regulations enforced by FinCEN, or collectively, the BSA, a licensed money transmitter in a number of U.S. states and territories, a licensee under NYDFS’s Virtual Currency Business Activity regime, commonly referred to as a BitLicense, a licensed electronic money institution under both and a registered Virtual Asset Service Provider with the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority and Authority, a licensed electronic money institution under the Central Bank of Ireland, a MiCA-licensed crypto asset service provider supervised by the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier in Luxembourg, and a limited purpose trust company chartered by the NYDFS, our banking financial institution partners view us as a higher risk customer for purposes of their anti-money laundering programs. We may face difficulty establishing or maintaining banking such relationships due to instability in the global banking system, increasing regulatory uncertainty and scrutiny, or our banking partners’ policies and some prior bank partners have terminated their relationship with us or have limited access to bank services. The loss of these banking partners or the imposition of operational restrictions by these banking partners and the inability for us to utilize other redundant financial institutions may result in a disruption of business activity as well as regulatory risks. In addition, as a result of the myriad of regulations, regulations or the risks of crypto assets generally, the adverse reputational impact of the 2022 Events on our industry, or in the event of an adverse outcome of the June 2023 SEC Complaint, financial institutions in the United States and globally may decide to not provide, or be prohibited from providing, account, custody, or other financial services to us or the cryptoeconomy our industry generally. Further, we have existing redundancies in U.S. and global financial institutions that work with crypto companies with which we engage.

We hold cash and store crypto assets on behalf of our customers and hold fiat and crypto for corporate investment and operating purposes. In addition, following the acquisition of Coinbase Asset Management, formerly One River Digital Asset Management (“CBAM”), we additionally store an immaterial amount of cryptocurrencies at third-party custodians for asset management products. Further, following our acquisition of Deribit, certain amounts of cryptocurrencies are stored at third-party custodians to support trading activity on Deribit’s platform.

We place great importance on securely storing crypto assets we custody and keeping them bankruptcy remote from our general creditors, and in June 2022 we updated our Retail User Agreement to clarify the applicability of UCC Uniform Commercial Code (“UCC”) Article 8 to custodied crypto assets – the same legal protection that our institutional custody and prime broker clients also rely upon. UCC Article 8 provides that financial assets held by Coinbase are not property of Coinbase and not subject to the claims of its general creditors. In light of UCC Article 8, we believe that a court would not treat custodied crypto assets as part of our general estate; however, due to the novelty of crypto assets, courts have not yet considered this type of treatment for custodied crypto assets. Our MiCA-authorized entity in the E.U. securely stores client assets in dedicated, segregated custody vaults with separate books-and-records from Coinbase’s own and other client funds, and uses tightly controlled settlement flows to preserve access to global liquidity and fast execution.

To mitigate the risks associated with the loss or theft of keys, we utilize both hot wallets and cold wallets in our custodial solutions. We actively manage wallet balances and generally seek to hold no more than 2% of custodied assets in hot wallets at any given time. Cold wallet private key materials are stored and secured at facilities within the United States and internationally. We store the substantial majority of our own crypto asset holdings utilizing the same storage solutions that we provide to our customers. In limited cases, we use storage solutions not offered to our customers to store immaterial amounts of crypto held for corporate purposes outside of our core custodial product offerings. Additionally, both Deribit and our CBAM offering utilizes utilize both Coinbase custody services and third parties as custodians.

•regulatory and governmental bodies in countries that we target for expansion express negative views towards crypto asset trading platforms and, more broadly, the cryptoeconomy; our industry; or

Our operating expenses may increase in the future as we continue to grow our business. While we consistently evaluate opportunities to drive efficiency, we cannot guarantee that these efforts will be successful or that we will not need to accelerate increase operating expenditures in the future. Our operations may prove more expensive than we currently anticipate, and we may not succeed in increasing our net revenue sufficiently to offset these higher expenses. Additionally, our revenue growth may be negatively impacted by, among other things, reduced demand for our offerings, increased competition, adverse macroeconomic conditions, any decrease in the growth or size of the cryptoeconomy, our industry, regulatory uncertainty or scrutiny, changes that impact our ability to offer certain products or services, or failure of new products and services to gain market adoption. As a result, we cannot be certain that we will be able to achieve profitability or achieve positive operating cash flow on any quarterly or annual basis. If we are unable to effectively manage these risks and difficulties as we encounter them, our business, operating results, and financial condition may suffer.

If we do not effectively manage our growth, including through acquisitions and by maintaining and improving our systems and processes, our business, operating results, and financial condition could be adversely affected.

We have experienced, and may experience in the future, periods of significant growth. To effectively manage and capitalize on our growth periods, we will need to manage headcount, capital, and processes efficiently while making investments such as expanding our information technology and financial, operating, and administrative systems and controls, and such initiatives could strain our resources. We could experience operating difficulties in managing our business as it expands across numerous jurisdictions, including difficulties in hiring, training, managing and retaining a remote and evolving employee base. base, as well as challenges integrating acquired businesses, technologies, and personnel. If we do not adapt or scale to meet these evolving challenges, or if we fail to successfully integrate acquisitions, we may experience erosion to our brand, the quality of our products and services may suffer, and our company culture may be harmed. Moreover, the failure of our systems and processes could undermine our ability to provide accurate, timely, and reliable reports on our financial and operating results, including the financial statements provided herein, and could impact the effectiveness of our internal controls over financial reporting. In addition, our systems and processes may not prevent or detect all errors, omissions, or fraud. Any of the foregoing operational failures could lead to noncompliance with laws and regulations, loss of operating licenses or other authorizations, or loss of bank financial institution relationships that could substantially impair or even suspend company operations.

Successful implementation of our growth strategy will also require significant expenditures before any substantial associated revenue is generated and we cannot guarantee that these increased investments will result in corresponding and offsetting revenue growth. For example, we may pay substantial premiums for acquired businesses and there can be no assurance that anticipated synergies or benefits will be realized on the timeline expected, or at all. Because we have a limited history operating our business at its current scale, it is difficult to evaluate our current business and future prospects, including our ability to plan for and model future growth. Our limited operating experience at this scale, combined with the rapidly evolving and volatile nature of the crypto asset market in which we operate, and other economic factors beyond our control, reduces our ability to accurately forecast quarterly or annual revenue.

Additionally, from time to time, we have realigned our resources and talent to implement stage-appropriate meet evolving business strategies, including layoffs and reductions in force. needs. This has previously included layoffs and workforce reductions aimed at cutting costs, improving efficiency, and responding to economic shifts. If there are unforeseen expenses associated with such realignments in our business strategies, and we incur unanticipated charges or liabilities, then we may not be able to effectively realize the expected cost savings or other benefits of such actions. Failure to manage any growth or any scaling back of our operations could have an adverse effect on our business, operating results, and financial condition.

Our products, services and educational offerings incorporate a holistic, customer-centric set of digital engagement practices, including educational content and notifications, which are designed, in part, to promote financial literacy and awareness and to provide customers with guidance and information to help them make better informed decisions about their crypto activity. Certain jurisdictions have proposed or are considering laws and regulations regarding conflicts of interest associated with the use of predictive data analytics, digital engagement practices, and similar technologies by broker-dealers, investment advisers and/or other securities market participants. If adopted and found to apply to our business, such laws or regulations may impose obligations on us that may require us to modify, limit, or discontinue our use of certain technologies and features used in connection with our products and services and/or to change the way that we interact with existing and prospective customers, which could adversely affect our business, operating results, and financial condition.

We currently have subsidiaries in the United States and abroad. We plan to enter into or increase our presence in additional markets around the world. We have a limited operating history outside the United

We have a limited operating history outside the United States, and our ability to manage our business and conduct our operations internationally requires considerable management attention and resources and is subject to particular challenges of supporting a growing business in an environment of diverse cultures, languages, customs, tax laws, legal systems, alternate dispute systems, and regulatory systems. As we continue to expand our business and customer base outside the United States, we will be increasingly susceptible to risks associated with international operations. These risks and challenges include:

We have limited experience with international regulatory environments and market practices and may not be able to penetrate or successfully operate in the markets we choose to enter. In addition, we may incur significant expenses as a result of our international expansion, and we may not be successful. We may face limited brand recognition in certain parts of the world that could lead to non-acceptance or delayed acceptance of our products and services by customers in new markets. We may also face challenges in complying with local laws and regulations. For example, we may be subject to regulatory frameworks that are evolving, have not undergone extensive rulemaking, and could result in uncertain outcomes for our customers and/or our ability to offer competitive products in the broader cryptoeconomy. onchain economy. Our failure to successfully manage these risks could harm our international operations and have an adverse effect on our business, operating results, and financial condition.

We may not be able to generate sufficient cash to service our debt and other obligations, including our obligations under the 2026 Convertible Notes, 2029 Convertible Notes, 2030 Convertible Notes, 2032 Convertible Notes, and Senior Notes.

Our ability to make payments on our indebtedness, including the 2026 Convertible Notes, 2029 Convertible Notes, 2030 Convertible Notes, 2032 Convertible Notes, and Senior Notes, and our other obligations will depend on our financial and operating performance, which is subject to prevailing economic and competitive conditions and to certain financial, business and other factors beyond our control. We may be unable to attain a level of cash flows from operating activities sufficient to permit us to pay the principal, premium, if any, and interest on our indebtedness, including each series of the 2026 Convertible Notes, 2029 Convertible Notes, 2030 Convertible Notes, 2032 Convertible Notes, and Senior Notes, and other obligations.

If we are unable to service our debt and other obligations from cash flows, we may need to refinance or restructure all or a portion of our debt obligations prior to maturity. Our ability to refinance or restructure our debt and other obligations will depend upon the condition of the capital markets and our financial condition at such time. Any refinancing or restructuring could be at higher interest rates and may require us to comply with more onerous covenants, which could further restrict our business operations. Statutory, contractual or other restrictions may also limit our subsidiaries’ ability to pay dividends or make distributions, loans or advances to us. For these reasons, we may not have access to any assets or cash flows of our subsidiaries to make interest and principal payments on each series of the 2026 Convertible Notes, 2029 Convertible Notes, 2030 Convertible Notes, 2032 Convertible Notes, and Senior Notes.

We have a substantial amount of indebtedness and other obligations, which could adversely affect our financial position and prevent us from fulfilling our obligations under the 2026 Convertible Notes, 2029 Convertible Notes, 2030 Convertible Notes, 2032 Convertible Notes, and Senior Notes.

We have a substantial amount of indebtedness and other obligations. As of December 31, 2024, 2025, we had approximately $4.28 $7.28 billion in aggregate principal amount of outstanding long-term indebtedness (excluding crypto asset borrowings), which includes $1.74 billion of our Senior Notes, $1.27 billion of our 2026 Convertible Notes, and $1.50 billion of our 2029 Convertible Notes, $1.27 billion of our 2030 Convertible Notes, and $1.50 billion of our 2032 Convertible Notes.

•make it difficult for us to satisfy our financial obligations, including making scheduled principal and interest payments on our 2026 Convertible Notes, 2029 Convertible Notes, 2030 Convertible Notes, 2032, Convertible Notes, Senior Notes, and our other obligations;

Borrower loan loss rates may be significantly affected by economic downturns or general economic conditions beyond our control and beyond the control of individual borrowers. In particular, loss rates on loans may increase due to factors such as prevailing market conditions in our industry, the price of Bitcoin and other crypto assets, which have experienced significant fluctuations, the amount of liquidity in the markets, and other factors. Borrowers may seek protection under federal bankruptcy law or similar laws. If a borrower of a loan files for bankruptcy (or becomes the subject of an involuntary petition), a stay may go into effect that will automatically put any pending collection actions on the loan on hold and prevent further collection action absent bankruptcy court approval. The efficacy of our security interest in customer collateral is not guaranteed under applicable state law or the Uniform Commercial Code and therefore we may be exposed to loss in the event of a customer default, even if we appear to be secured against such default. While we have not incurred any material losses to date, if any of the foregoing events were to occur, our reputation and relationships with borrowers, and our financial results, could be harmed. We intend to continue to explore other products, models, and structures for offering commercial financing, and other forms of credit and loan products. Some of those models or structures may require, or be deemed to require, additional data, procedures, partnerships, licenses, regulatory approvals, or capabilities that we have not yet obtained or developed.

While we have policies and procedures to manage and mitigate these risks, we cannot be certain that such processes will be effective. Our failure to limit chargebacks and fraudulent transactions could increase the number of returns, refunds, and chargebacks that we have to process. In addition, if the number of returns, refunds, and chargebacks increases, card networks or our banking financial institution partners could require us to increase reserves, impose penalties on us, charge additional or higher fees, or terminate their relationships with us. Failure to effectively manage risk and prevent fraud could increase our chargeback, refund, and return losses or cause us to incur other liabilities. Increases in chargebacks, refunds, returns, or other liabilities could have an adverse effect on our operating results, financial condition, and cash flows.

In connection with our Prime trading service, we routinely route customer orders to third-party exchanges or other trading venues. In connection with these activities, we generally hold cash and other crypto assets with such third-party exchanges or other trading venues in order to effect customer orders. If we were to experience a disruption in our access to these third-party exchanges and trading venues, our Prime trading service could be adversely affected to the extent that we are limited in our ability to execute order flow for our Prime customers. In addition, while we have policies and procedures to help mitigate our risks related to routing orders through third-party trading venues, if any of these third-party trading venues experience any technical, legal, regulatory, or other adverse events, such as shutdowns, delays, system failures, suspension of withdrawals, illiquidity, insolvency, or loss of customer assets, we might not be able to fully recover the cash and other crypto assets that we have deposited with these third parties, and these risks may be heightened following the 2022 Events. parties. As a result, our business, operating results, and financial condition could be adversely affected.

Any acquisitions and investments that we make could require significant management attention, disrupt our business, result in dilution to our stockholders, shareholders, and could adversely affect our business, operating results, and financial condition.

In the future, the pace and scale of our acquisitions may increase and may include larger acquisitions than we have done historically. We also invest in companies and technologies, many of which are private companies and technologies that are highly speculative in nature. In the future, we may not be able to find other suitable acquisition and investment candidates, and we may not be able to complete acquisitions or make investments on favorable terms, if at all. In some cases, the costs of such acquisitions and investments may be substantial, and there is no assurance that we will receive a favorable return on investment for our acquisitions and investments. We have and may in the future be required to write off acquisitions or investments. Moreover, our previous and future acquisitions and investments may not achieve our goals, and any future acquisitions and investments we complete could be viewed negatively by customers, developers, advertisers, or investors. In addition, if we fail to successfully close or integrate any acquisitions, or integrate the products or technologies associated with such acquisitions into our company, our business, operating results, and financial condition could be adversely affected. Our ability to acquire and integrate companies, products, services, licenses, employees, or technologies in a successful manner is unproven. Any integration process may require significant time and resources, and we may not be able to manage the process successfully, including successfully securing regulatory approvals which may be required to close the transaction and to continue to operate the target firm’s business or products in a manner that is useful to us. We may not successfully evaluate or utilize the acquired products, services, technology, or personnel, or accurately forecast the financial impact of an acquisition transaction, including accounting charges. We may have to pay cash, incur debt, or issue equity securities to pay for any such acquisition, which could adversely affect our business, operating results, and financial condition. The sale of equity or issuance of debt to finance any such acquisitions could result in dilution to our stockholders, shareholders, which, depending on the size of the acquisition, may be significant. The incurrence of indebtedness would result in increased fixed obligations and could also include covenants or other restrictions that would impede our ability to manage our operations.

Our key business metrics may also be impacted by compliance or fraud-related bans, technical incidents, or false or spam accounts in existence on our platform. We regularly deactivate fraudulent and spam accounts that violate our terms of service, and exclude these users from the calculation of our key business metrics; however, we may not succeed in identifying and removing all such accounts from our platform. Additionally, users are not prohibited from having more than one account and our MTUs metric may overstate the number of unique customers who have registered an account on our platform as one customer may register for, and use, multiple accounts with different email addresses, phone numbers, or usernames. Furthermore, MTUs may overstate the number of unique consumers due to differences in product architecture or user behavior, which may cause MTUs to fluctuate. For example, a user may currently have a an account on the Base App (formerly Coinbase Wallet account Wallet) that is unlinked to their registered account on our platform, but then choose to link these accounts in the future as our product offerings evolve. To the extent that the user had activity in both their Wallet and their registered account in the measurement period, what was previously captured as two unique MTUs would now be counted as a single MTU. If MTUs or our other key business metrics provide us with incorrect or incomplete information about users and their behavior, we may make inaccurate conclusions about our business.

We may change our key business metrics from time to time, which may be perceived negatively. Given the rapid evolution of the crypto markets and our revenue sources, we regularly evaluate whether our key business metrics remain meaningful indicators of the performance of our business. As a result of these evaluations, in the past we have decided to make changes, and in the future may make additional changes, to our key business metrics, including eliminating adding, eliminating, or replacing existing metrics. Further, if investors or the media perceive any changes to our key business metrics disclosures negatively, our business, operating results, and financial condition could be adversely affected.

Our platform may be exploited to facilitate illegal activity such as fraud, money laundering, gambling, tax evasion, sanctions evasion, and scams. We or our partners may be specifically targeted by individuals seeking to conduct fraudulent or otherwise illicit transfers, and it may be difficult or impossible for us to detect and avoid such transactions in certain circumstances. The use of our platform for illegal or improper purposes could subject us to claims, individual and class action lawsuits, and government and regulatory investigations, prosecutions, enforcement actions, inquiries, or requests that could result in liability and reputational harm for us. Moreover, certain activities that may be legal in one jurisdiction may be illegal in another jurisdiction, and certain activities that are at one time legal may in the future be deemed illegal in the same jurisdiction. As a result, there is significant uncertainty and cost associated with detecting and monitoring transactions for compliance with local laws. In the event that a customer is found responsible for intentionally or inadvertently violating the laws in any jurisdiction, we may be subject to governmental inquiries, enforcement actions, prosecuted, or otherwise held secondarily liable for aiding or facilitating such activities. Changes in law have also increased the penalties for money transmitters for certain illegal activities, and government authorities may consider increased or additional penalties from time to time. Owners of intellectual property rights or government authorities may seek to bring legal action against money transmitters, including us, for involvement in the sale of infringing or allegedly infringing items. Any threatened or resulting claims could result in reputational harm, and any resulting liabilities, loss of transaction volume, or increased costs could harm our business.

Moreover, while fiat currencies can be used to facilitate illegal activities, crypto assets are relatively new and, in many jurisdictions, may be lightly regulated or largely unregulated. Many types of crypto assets have characteristics, such as the speed with which digital currency transactions can be conducted, the ability to conduct transactions without the involvement of regulated intermediaries, the ability to engage in transactions across multiple jurisdictions, the irreversible nature of certain crypto asset transactions, and encryption technology that anonymizes these transactions, that make crypto assets susceptible to use in illegal activity. U.S. federal and state and foreign regulatory authorities and law enforcement agencies, such as the Department of Justice, the Department of the Treasury, SEC, CFTC, FTC, FinCEN or the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”), and various state securities and financial regulators regulators, such as the NYDFS, and similar foreign regulatory authorities, have taken and continue to take legal action actions against persons and entities alleged to be engaged in fraudulent schemes or other illicit activity involving crypto assets. We also support crypto assets that incorporate privacy-enhancing features, and may from time to time support additional crypto assets with similar functionalities. These privacy-enhancing crypto assets obscure the identities of sender and receiver, and may prevent law enforcement officials from tracing the source of funds on the blockchain. Facilitating transactions in these crypto assets may cause us to be at increased risk of liability arising out of anti-money laundering and economic sanctions laws and regulations.

While we believe that our risk management and compliance framework is designed to detect significant illicit activities conducted by our potential or existing customers, we cannot ensure that we will be able to detect all illegal activity on our platform. Base, Base Chain (formerly Base), an open source permissionless L2 protocol built on the Ethereum blockchain developed by us, has been in the past, and may in the future, be a target for scam tokens or other illegal activity. For example, in August 2023, a number of fraudulent tokens were identified and traded on Base Chain blockchain. As we continue to develop Base, Base Chain, and in light of this fraudulent activity, we continue to invest in improving our security processes, including through our in-house blockchain monitoring capabilities, third-party tools for identifying malicious and out of pattern events, and the monitoring of contract source code and bytecode on Base Chain against a database of known scam code patterns. While to date, such illegal or fraudulent activity on Base Chain has not had a material impact on our business, operating results, financial condition, or cash flows, future illegal activity could adversely affect our business, operating results, financial condition or cash flows and our efforts to identify and remedy such illegal or fraudulent activity may not be successful. If our platform is used to further such illegal activities, our business, operating results, and financial condition could be adversely affected.

Our ability to comply with applicable complex and evolving laws, regulations, and rules is largely dependent on the establishment, maintenance, and scaling of our compliance, internal audit, and reporting systems to continuously keep pace with our customer activity and transaction volume, as well as our ability to attract and retain qualified compliance and other risk management personnel. While we have devoted significant resources to develop policies and procedures to identify, monitor, and manage our risks, and expect to continue to do so in the future, we cannot assure you that our policies and procedures are and will always be effective or that we have been and will always be successful in monitoring or evaluating the risks to which we are or may be exposed in all market environments or against all types of risks, including unidentified or unanticipated risks. Our risk management policies and procedures rely on a combination of technical and human controls and supervision that are subject to error and failure. Some of our methods for managing risk are discretionary by nature and are based on internally developed controls and observed historical market behavior, and also involve reliance on standard industry practices. These methods may not adequately prevent losses, particularly as they relate to extreme market movements, which may be significantly greater than historical fluctuations in the market. Further, as a result of the 2022 Events or similar market disruptions in the future, we future may cause us to reevaluate our risk management policies and procedures. Accordingly, in the future, we may identify gaps in such policies and procedures or existing gaps may become higher risk, and may require significant resources and management attention. Our risk management policies and procedures also may not adequately prevent losses due to technical errors if our testing and quality control practices are not effective in preventing failures. In addition, we may elect to adjust our risk management policies and procedures to allow for an increase in risk tolerance, which could expose us to the risk of greater losses.

The crypto asset market has been characterized by significant volatility and unexpected price movements, and has experienced significant declines in the past. Certain crypto assets may become more volatile and less liquid in a very short period of time, which was the case following the 2022 Events, resulting in market prices being subject to erratic and abrupt market movement, which could harm our business. For instance, abrupt changes in volatility or market movement can lead to extreme pressures on our platform and infrastructure that can lead to inadvertent suspension of services across parts of the platform or the entire platform. As a result, from time to time we experience outages. For example, in 2024, 2025, we experienced approximately 14 10 outages, with an average outage duration of 58.6 74.2 minutes. Outages can lead to increased customer service expense, can cause customer loss and reputational damage, result in inquiries and actions by regulators, and can lead to other damages for which we may be responsible.

Since the inception of the cryptoeconomy, our industry, numerous crypto asset platforms have been sued, investigated, or shut down due to fraud, manipulative practices, business failure, and security breaches. In many of these instances, customers of these platforms were not compensated or made whole for their losses. Larger platforms like us are more appealing targets for hackers and malware, and may also be more likely to be targets of regulatory enforcement actions. For example, in February 2014, Mt. Gox, the then largest crypto asset platform worldwide, filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan after an estimated 700,000 Bitcoins were stolen from its wallets. In May 2019, Binance, one of the world’s largest platforms, was hacked, resulting in losses of approximately $40 million, and in February 2021, Bitfinex settled a long-running legal dispute with the State of New York related to Bitfinex’s alleged misuse of over $800 million of customer assets. The failure of several prominent crypto trading venues and lending platforms in 2022 Events resulted in a loss of confidence in the broader cryptoeconomy, industry, adverse reputational impact to crypto asset platforms, increased negative publicity surrounding crypto more broadly, heightened scrutiny by regulators and lawmakers and a call for increased regulations of crypto assets and crypto asset platforms.

Negative perception, a lack of stability and standardized regulation in the cryptoeconomy, our industry, and the closure or temporary shutdown of crypto asset platforms due to fraud, business failure, hackers or malware, or government mandated regulation, and associated losses suffered by customers may continue to reduce confidence or interest in the cryptoeconomy our industry and result in greater volatility of the prices of assets, including significant depreciation in value. Any of these events could have an adverse impact on our business and our customers’ perception of us, including decreased use of our platform and loss of customer demand for our products and services.

In order to support any supported crypto asset, a variety of front and back-end technical and development work is required to implement our wallet, custody, trading, staking and other solutions for our customers, and to integrate such supported crypto asset with our existing technical infrastructure. For certain crypto assets, a significant amount of development work is required and there is no guarantee that we will be able to integrate successfully with any existing or future crypto asset. asset, or that such integration will be secure against blockchain-level exploits or vulnerabilities. In addition, such integration may introduce software errors or weaknesses into our platform, including our existing infrastructure. Even if such integration is initially successful, any number of technical changes, software upgrades, soft or hard forks, cybersecurity incidents, or other changes to the underlying blockchain network may occur from time to time, causing incompatibility, technical issues, disruptions, or security weaknesses to our platform. If we are unable to identify, troubleshoot and resolve any such issues successfully, we may no longer be able to support such crypto asset, our customers’ assets may be frozen or lost, the security of our hot, warm, or cold wallets may be compromised, and our platform and technical infrastructure may be affected, all of which could adversely affect our business, operating results, and financial condition.

There continues to be uncertainty with respect to the timing, character, and amount of income inclusions for various crypto asset transactions including, but not limited to lending and borrowing crypto assets, staking, and other crypto asset incentives and products that we offer. Although we believe our treatment of crypto asset transactions for federal income tax purposes is consistent with existing positions from the IRS and/or existing U.S. federal income tax principles, because of the rapidly evolving nature of advances in crypto asset innovations and the increasing variety and complexity of crypto asset transactions and products, it is possible the IRS and various U.S. states may disagree with our treatment of certain crypto asset offerings for U.S. tax purposes, which could adversely affect our customers and the vitality of our business. Similar uncertainties exist in the foreign markets in which we operate with respect to direct and indirect taxes, and these uncertainties and potential adverse interpretations of tax law could impact the amount of tax we and our non-U.S. customers are required to pay, and the vitality of our platforms outside of the United States.

Our tax information reporting obligations with respect to crypto transactions may be subject to further scrutiny in light of changes made to the implementation of the U.S. and global broker reporting regime for tax reporting.

On June 28, 2024 and again on December 27, In 2024, the U.S. Treasury Department and the IRS released final regulations and issued other administrative guidance on tax information reporting for digital assets (collectively, the “Final Regulations”) that will be are applicable, in certain cases starting as of January 1, 2025 and in certain other cases starting January 1, 2027. 2025.

Although we believe we are compliant with U.S. tax reporting and withholding requirements with respect to our customers’ crypto asset transactions, requirements, our compliance with the Final Regulations, including but not limited to U.S. onboarding requirements through Forms W-9 and W-8, backup withholding, non-resident alien withholding, and Form 1099 and Form 1042-S reporting obligations, may be subject to scrutiny and may be challenged. There is a risk that we may not have proper properly implement processes and procedures necessary to comply with the Final Regulations, may not be able to interpret misinterpret the IIJA, the Final Regulations, or the administrative guidance correctly, guidance, or may not be able to build experience disruptions in the systems within the required timelines to ensure compliance for certain customers or transactions. recently built. If the IRS determines that we are not in compliance with our tax reporting or withholding obligations on customer transactions, obligations, significant taxes and penalties may be imposed, which could adversely affect our financial position. The Final Regulations will require us to invest substantially in new compliance processes and procedures, which also could adversely affect our financial position. Further, the IRS may issue additional guidance in the future with respect to tax reporting and withholding obligations, which could impose additional burdens on us and result in significant taxes and penalties that could adversely affect our financial position.

Similarly, new rules for reporting crypto assets under the global “common reporting standard” (CRS) as well as under and the “crypto-asset reporting framework” (CARF) will be have been implemented on our international operations, creating new obligations and a need to invest continue investing in new onboarding and reporting infrastructure. Such rules are under discussion have been adopted by the numerous member and observer states of the “Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development” and by the European Commission on behalf of the member states of the European Union. These new rules may give rise to potential liabilities or disclosure requirements for prior customer arrangements and new rules operational challenges that affect how we onboard our customers and report their transactions to taxing authorities. Additionally, the European Union has issued implemented a directive, commonly referred to as “CESOP” (the Central Electronic System of Payment information), which requires payment service providers in the European Union to report cross-border fiat transactions to taxing authorities on a quarterly basis. Any actual or perceived failure by us to comply with the above or any other tax and financial regulations that apply to our operations could harm our business business, lead to customer attrition, and adversely affect our financial position.

The accounting rules and regulations that we must comply with are complex and subject to interpretation by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (the “FASB”), the SEC, and various other bodies formed to promulgate and interpret appropriate accounting principles. Recent actions and public comments from the FASB and the SEC have focused on the integrity of financial reporting and internal controls and many companies’ accounting policies are being subjected to heightened scrutiny by regulators and the public. Further, there remains relatively limited precedent for the financial accounting of crypto assets and related valuation and revenue recognition, even while the crypto ecosystem continues to evolve rapidly, leading in some cases to related accounting standards becoming quickly outdated. Moreover, a change in these principles or interpretations could have a significant effect on our reported financial results, and may even affect the reporting of transactions completed before the announcement or effectiveness of a change. Additionally, For example, on March 31, 2022, the staff of the SEC issued Staff Accounting Bulletin (“SAB”) No. 121 (“SAB 121”), which represented a significant change regarding how a company safeguarding crypto assets held for its platform users reports such crypto assets on its balance sheet and required retrospective application as of January 1, 2022. In January 2025, the staff of the SEC issued SAB No. 122 (“SAB 122”), which rescinds the previously-issued interpretive guidance included within SAB 121. We have adopted SAB 122 as of December 31, 2024 on a retrospective basis.

The cryptoeconomy onchain economy is novel. As a result, policymakers are just beginning to consider considering what a regulatory regime for crypto would look like and the elements that would serve as the foundation for such a regime. This less developed consideration of crypto may harm our ability to effectively react to proposed legislation and regulation of crypto assets or crypto asset platforms adverse to our business.

Competitors, including traditional financial services, have spent years cultivating professional relationships with relevant policymakers on behalf of their industry so that those policymakers may understand that industry, the current legal landscape affecting that industry, and the specific policy proposals that could be implemented in order to responsibly develop that industry. The lobbyists working for these competitors have similarly spent years developing and working to implement strategies to advance these industries. Members of the cryptoeconomy onchain economy have started to engage policymakers directly and with the help of external advisors and lobbyists. For example, in order to advance our mission, in February 2022 we launched our Coinbase Innovation Political Action Committee to support crypto-forward political candidates and initiatives. Further, in December 2023, we together with a number of other crypto and blockchain market participants supported the launch of the Fairshake Political Action Committee to support Committee, which supports political candidates in the 2024 U.S. presidential and congressional elections who support crypto and blockchain innovation or against political candidates who do not support crypto and responsible regulation. blockchain innovation. However, these efforts to educate policymakers and advocate for sensible crypto regulation are nascent compared to more established industries, and may be perceived unfavorably by investors and the public and have an adverse impact on our brand and reputation. As a result, new laws and regulations may be proposed and adopted in the United States and internationally, or existing laws and regulations may be interpreted in new ways, that harm the cryptoeconomy onchain economy or crypto asset platforms, which could adversely affect our business, operating results, and financial condition.

As a financial institution licensed to, among other things, engage in money transmission in the United States, to conduct virtual currency business activity in New York, Dubai and Bermuda, and issue electronic money in the United Kingdom and the European Union, we are subject to strict rules governing how we manage and hold customer fiat currency currency, stablecoins, and crypto assets. We maintain complex treasury operations to manage and move customer fiat currency currency, stablecoins, and crypto assets across our platforms and to comply with regulatory requirements. However, it is possible we may experience errors in fiat currency currency, stablecoin, and crypto asset handling, accounting, and regulatory reporting that lead us to be out of compliance with these requirements. In addition, regulators may increase the amount of fiat currency capital reserves that we are required to maintain for our operations, as has happened in the past, which may lead to sanctions, penalties, changes to our business operations, or the revocation of licenses. Frequent launch of new products and services, margin trading, lending functions, and the addition of new payment rails increase these risks.

Many of the crypto assets and other products, such as event contracts, in which we facilitate trading are subject to regulatory authority by the CFTC. Any fraudulent or manipulative activity in a crypto asset or other regulated product, including event contracts, occurring on our platform could subject us to increased regulatory scrutiny, regulatory enforcement, and litigation.

Any transaction in a commodity, including a crypto asset, entered into with or offered to retail investors using leverage, margin, or other financing arrangements (a “retail commodity transaction”) is subject to CFTC regulation as a futures contract unless such transaction results in actual delivery within 28 days. The meaning of “actual delivery” has been the subject of commentary and debate. To the extent that crypto asset transactions that we facilitate or facilitated are deemed retail commodity transactions, including pursuant to current or subsequent rulemaking or guidance by the CFTC, we may be subject to additional regulatory requirements and oversight, and we could be subject to judicial or administrative sanctions if we do not or did not at a relevant time possess appropriate registrations. The CFTC has previously brought enforcement actions against entities engaged in retail commodity transactions without appropriate registrations, as well as recent enforcement settled orders against developers of decentralized platforms.

Particular crypto assets or transactions therein therein, or other contracts or products we offer, could be deemed “commodity interests” (e.g., futures, options, swaps) or security-based swaps subject to regulation by the CFTC or SEC, respectively. If a crypto asset that we facilitate trading in is deemed a commodity interest or a security-based swap, we would be subject to additional regulatory requirements, registrations and approvals, and potentially face regulatory enforcement, civil liability, and significant increased compliance and operational costs.

We obtain collect and process a large amount of sensitive customer data. Any real or perceived improper use of, disclosure of, or access to such data could harm our reputation, as well as adversely affect our business, operating results, and financial condition.

We obtain collect and process large amounts of sensitive data, including personal data related to our customers and their transactions, such as their names, addresses, social security numbers, visa information, copies of government-issued identification, biometric facial recognition data (from scanning of photographs for identity verification), verification and fraud prevention purposes), trading data, tax identification, and bank account information. We face risks, including to our reputation, in the handling processing and protection of this data, and these risks will increase as our business continues to expand, including through our acquisition of, and investment in, other companies and technologies. Federal, state, and international laws and regulations governing privacy, data protection, and e-commerce transactions require us to safeguard our customers’, employees’, and service providers’ personal data.

We have administrative, technical, and physical security measures and controls in place and maintain a robust information security program. However, our security measures, those of our vendors or service providers, or the security measures of companies we acquire, may be inadequate or breached as a result of third-party action, employee or service provider error, malfeasance, malware, phishing, hacking attacks, system error, trickery, advances in computer capabilities, new discoveries in the field of cryptography, inadequate facility security or otherwise, and, as a result, someone may be able to obtain unauthorized access to sensitive information, including personal data, on our systems. We could be the target of a cybersecurity incident, which could result in harm to our reputation and financial losses. Additionally, our customers have been and could be targeted in cybersecurity incidents like an account takeover, which could result in harm to our reputation and financial losses. For example, as previously disclosed on a Current Report on Form 8-K filed with the SEC on May 15, 2025, a threat actor improperly obtained information about certain customer accounts and internal documentation, and used that information for social-engineering attempts. No passwords or private keys were compromised as a result of this incident. We continue to face risks related to this incident, including harm to our reputation, governmental investigations and regulatory scrutiny, and ongoing litigation.

We are subject to, or may become subject to, the E.U.’s and the U.K.’s General Data Protection Regulation (collectively, the “GDPR”), the E.U. ePrivacy Directive (including its national implementations), the E.U. Data Act, the E.U. Digital Operational Resilience Act and other E.U. and U.K. laws that regulate personal data, non-personal data, and cybersecurity operations. We are subject to both The most well-known of such laws, the European Union’s and the United Kingdom’s General Data Protection Regulation (collectively, the “GDPR”), which GDPR, imposes stringent privacy and personal data protection requirements, requirements and could increase the risk of non-compliance and the costs of providing our products and services in a compliant manner. A breach of the GDPR could result in regulatory investigations, reputational damage, fines and sanctions, orders to cease or change our processing of our data, enforcement notices, or assessment notices (for a compulsory audit). For example, if regulators assert that we have failed to comply with the GDPR, we may be subject to fines of up to €20 million in the European Union (£17.5 million in the U.K.) or 4% of our worldwide annual revenue, whichever is greater. E.U. (£17.5 million in the U.K.) or 4% of our worldwide annual revenue, whichever is greater. We may also face civil claims including representative actions and other class action type litigation (where individuals have suffered harm), potentially amounting to significant compensation or damages liabilities, as well as associated costs, diversion of internal resources, and reputational harm.

We are also subject to evolving E.U. privacy laws on cookies and e-marketing. e-marketing and online behavioral advertising. As regulators start to enforce the strict approach in recent guidance, become increasingly focused on compliance, this could lead to substantial costs, require significant systems changes, limit the effectiveness of our marketing activities, divert the attention of our technology personnel, negatively impact our efforts to understand users, adversely affect our margins, increase costs, and subject us to additional liabilities.

Our use of AI may result in new or expanded risks and liabilities, including due to enhanced governmental or regulatory regulation and scrutiny, litigation, compliance issues, ethical concerns, confidentiality or security risks, as well as other factors that could adversely affect our reputation, business, operating results, and financial condition. Evolving legal frameworks and guidance, such as the E.U. Evolving AI Act, other international regimes, and emerging developments with respect to U.S. federal and state regulations, rules, regulations, and industry standards governing AI may require us and our third-party developers to incur significant costs to modify, maintain, or align our business practices, services, and solutions to comply with rules and regulations, the nature of which cannot be determined at this time and may be inconsistent from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

There can be no assurance that the use of AI and machine learning solutions and features will enhance our products or services, produce the intended results, or be beneficial to our business, including our efficiency. Consumer and societal attitudes toward AI are evolving and there is a risk that customers, regulators or the public may perceive AI technologies negatively. Concerns about automation, automated decision making, privacy, security, transparency, or other ethical considerations could reduce trust in our products and services or deter customer adoption of AI-enabled features in our products or services. AI machine learning systems are complex and may be flawed, insufficient, reflect unwanted forms of bias, or contain errors or inadequacies that are not easily detectable, or may cause unintentional or unexpected outputs that are incorrect, including with respect to financial data, do not match our business goals, do not comply with our policies or those of our regulators, or are otherwise are inconsistent with our brand. If the output that the AI applications we use to produce such output is, or is alleged to be, inaccurate, deficient, or biased, our reputation, business, operating results, and financial condition could be adversely affected.

We rely on banks financial institutions and other payment processors to process customers’ payments in connection with the purchase of crypto assets on our platform and we pay these providers fees for their services. From time to time, payment networks have increased, and may increase in the future, the interchange fees and assessments that they charge for transactions that use their networks. Payment networks have imposed, and may impose in the future, special fees on the purchase of crypto assets, including on our platform, which could negatively impact us and significantly increase our costs. Our payment card processors may have the right to pass any increases in interchange fees and assessments on to us, and may impose additional use charges which would increase our operating costs and reduce our operating income. We could attempt to pass these increases along to our customers, but this strategy might result in the loss of customers to our competitors that may not pass along the increases, thereby reducing our revenue and earnings. If competitive practices prevent us from passing along the higher fees to our customers in the future, we may have to absorb all or a portion of such increases, thereby increasing our operating costs and reducing our earnings.

We may also be directly or indirectly liable to the payment networks for rule violations. Payment networks set and interpret their network operating rules and have alleged from time to time that various aspects of our business model violate these operating rules. If such allegations are not resolved favorably, they may result in significant fines and penalties or penalties, require changes in our business practices that practices, or result in the loss of their services for parts of our business, any of which may be costly and adversely affect our business. The payment networks could adopt new operating rules or interpret or reinterpret existing rules that we or our processors might find difficult or even impossible to follow, or costly to implement. As a result, we could lose our ability to give customers the option of using cards to fund their purchases or the choice of currency in which they would like their card to be charged. If we are unable to accept cards or are limited in our ability to do so, our business, operating results, and financial condition could be adversely affected.

We rely upon third-party platforms for the distribution of certain products and services. Our Coinbase and the Base App (formerly Coinbase Wallet Wallet) apps are provided as free applications through both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store, and are also accessible via mobile and traditional websites. The Google Play Store and Apple App Store are global application distribution platforms and the main distribution channels for our apps. As such, the promotion, distribution, and operation of our apps are subject to the respective platforms’ terms and policies for application developers, which are very broad and subject to frequent changes and re-interpretation. Further, these distribution platforms often contain restrictions related to crypto assets that are uncertain, broadly construed, and can limit the nature and scope of services that can be offered. For example, Apple App Store’s restrictions related to crypto assets have disrupted the proposed launch of many features within the Coinbase and Coinbase Wallet the Base App apps, including NFT transfer services and access to decentralized applications. If our products are found to be in violation of any such terms and conditions, we may no longer be able to offer our products through such third-party platforms. There can be no guarantee that third-party platforms will continue to support our product offerings, or that customers will be able to continue to use our products. In For example, in December 2019, we were similarly instructed by Apple to remove certain features relating to decentralized applications from our application to comply with the Apple App Store’s policies. Any changes, bugs, technical or regulatory issues with third-party platforms, our relationships with mobile manufacturers and carriers, or changes to their terms of service or policies could degrade our products’ functionalities, reduce or eliminate our ability to distribute our products, give preferential treatment to competitive products, limit our ability to deliver high quality offerings, or impose fees or other charges, any of which could affect our product usage and adversely affect our business, operating results, and financial condition.

In recent years, there has been considerable patent, copyright, trademark, domain name, trade secret, and other intellectual property development activity in the cryptoeconomy, onchain economy, as well as litigation, based on allegations of infringement or other violations of intellectual property, including by large financial institutions. The evolving climate and new policy initiatives at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) related to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board are creating a more challenging environment to invalidate patents that are or can be asserted against us. Furthermore, individuals and groups can purchase patents and other intellectual property assets for the purpose of making claims of infringement to extract settlements from companies like ours. Finally, the USPTO has recently implemented and may continue to implement changes that expand the subject matter considered eligible for patent protection, which may make it easier for competitors and other adverse parties to obtain patents related to our platform and technology.

We have and may in the future experience employee or service provider misconduct. Employee or service provider misconduct or error could subject us to legal liability, financial losses, and regulatory sanctions and could seriously harm our reputation and negatively affect our business. Such misconduct could include engaging in improper or unauthorized transactions or activities, misappropriation of customer funds, insider trading and misappropriation of information, failing to supervise other employees or service providers, improperly using confidential information, as well as improper trading activity such as spoofing, layering, wash trading, manipulation and front-running. Employee or service provider errors, including mistakes in executing, recording, or processing transactions for customers, could expose us to the risk of material losses even if the errors are detected. Although we have implemented processes and procedures and provide trainings to our employees and service providers to reduce the likelihood of misconduct and error, these efforts may not be successful. Moreover, the risk of employee or service provider error or misconduct may be even greater for novel products and services and is compounded by the fact that many of our employees and service providers are accustomed to working at tech companies which generally do not maintain the same compliance customs and rules as financial services firms. This can lead to high risk of confusion among employees and service providers with respect to compliance obligations, particularly including confidentiality, data access, trading, and conflicts. It is not always possible to deter misconduct, and the precautions we take to prevent and detect this activity may not be effective in all cases. If we were found to have not met our regulatory oversight and compliance and other obligations, we could be subject to regulatory sanctions, financial penalties, restrictions on our activities for failure to properly identify, monitor and respond to potentially problematic activity and seriously damage our reputation. Our employees, contractors, and agents could also commit errors that subject us to financial claims for negligence, as well as regulatory actions, or result in financial liability. Further, allegations by regulatory or criminal authorities of improper trading activities could affect our brand and reputation.

We frequently engage in a wide variety of transactions and maintain relationships with a significant number of crypto projects, their developers, members of their ecosystem, and investors. These transactions and relationships could create potential conflicts of interests in management decisions that we make. For instance, certain of our officers, directors, and employees are active investors in crypto projects themselves, and may make investment decisions that favor projects that they have personally invested in. Many of our large stockholders shareholders also make investments in these crypto projects. In addition, our co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Armstrong, is involved in a number of initiatives related to the cryptoeconomy onchain economy and more broadly. For example, Mr. Armstrong currently serves as the chief executive officer of ResearchHub Technologies, Inc., a scientific research development platform. This and other initiatives he is involved in could divert Mr. Armstrong’s time and attention from overseeing our business operations which could have a negative impact on our business. Moreover, we may in the future be subject to litigation as a result of his involvement with these other initiatives.

Our performance is subject to general economic conditions, and their impact on the crypto asset markets and our customers. The United States and other key international economies have experienced cyclical downturns from time to time in which economic activity declined resulting in lower consumption rates, restricted credit, reduced profitability, weaknesses in financial markets, bankruptcies, and overall uncertainty with respect to the economy. Adverse general economic conditions have impacted in the past, and may impact in the future, the cryptoeconomy, onchain economy, although the extent of such impacts remains uncertain and dependent on a variety of factors, including market adoption of crypto assets, global trends in the cryptoeconomy, onchain economy, central bank monetary policies, instability in the global banking system, volatility and disruptions in the capital and credit markets, and other events beyond our control. Geopolitical developments, such as trade wars and foreign exchange limitations can also increase the severity and levels of unpredictability globally and increase the volatility of global financial and crypto asset markets. For example, in the past the capital and credit markets have experienced extreme volatility and disruptions, resulting in steep declines in the value of crypto assets. To the extent general economic conditions and crypto assets markets materially deteriorate or decline for a prolonged period, our ability to generate revenue and to attract and retain customers could suffer and our business, operating results and financial condition could be adversely affected. Moreover, even if general economic conditions were to improve following any such deterioration, there is no guarantee that the cryptoeconomy onchain economy would similarly improve.

Further, in 2022, a number of blockchain protocols and crypto financial firms, and in particular protocols and firms involving high levels of financial leverage such as high-yield lending products or derivatives trading, suffered from insolvency and liquidity crises leading to the 2022 Events. failure of several prominent crypto trading venues and lending platforms. Some of the 2022 Events which are alleged or have been held to be the result of fraudulent activity by insiders, including misappropriation of customer funds and other illicit activity and internal controls failures. In connection with the 2022 Events, these failures, concerns were raised about the potential for a market condition where the failure of one company leads to the financial distress of other companies, which has the potential to depress the prices of assets used as collateral by other firms. If such a market condition were to become widespread in the cryptoeconomy, onchain economy, we could suffer from increased counterparty risk, including defaults or bankruptcies of major customers or counterparties, which could lead to significantly reduced activity on our platform and fewer available crypto market opportunities in general. Further, forced selling of crypto assets by distressed companies could lead to lower crypto asset prices and may lead to a reduction in our revenue. To the extent that conditions in the general economic and crypto asset markets were to materially deteriorate, our ability to attract and retain customers may suffer.

Actual events involving limited liquidity, defaults, non-performance or other adverse developments that affect financial institutions, transactional counterparties or other companies in the financial services industry, or the financial services industry generally, or concerns or rumors about any such events or other similar risks, have in the past and may in the future lead to market-wide liquidity problems. For example, in March 2023, Silvergate Capital Corp. announced it would wind down operations and liquidate Silvergate Bank. Soon after, the FDIC was appointed receiver of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. In connection with these issues and issues with other financial institutions, the prices of fiat-backed stablecoins, including USDC, were temporarily impacted and may be similarly impacted again in the future. Further, if the instability in the global banking system continues or worsens, there could be additional negative ramifications, such as additional all market-wide liquidity problems or impacted access to deposits and investments for customers of affected banks financial institutions and certain banking partners, and our business, operating results and financial condition could be adversely affected.

There is focus from certain investors, regulators, employees, users and other stakeholders concerning corporate responsibility, specifically related to environmental, social, and governance matters (“ESG”) and related assurances and disclosures. Compliance with recently adopted and potential upcoming future ESG requirements, including the E.U.’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive and California’s climate-related bills, may require the dedication of significant time and resources. If we are unable to comply with new laws and regulations or changes to existing legal or regulatory requirements concerning ESG matters, or if we fail to meet investor, industry, or stakeholder expectations and standards relating to ESG matters, our reputation may be harmed, customers may choose to refrain from using our products and services, we may be subject to fines, penalties, regulatory or other enforcement actions, and our business, operating results, and financial condition could be adversely affected.

Our determination of our tax liability is subject to review and may be challenged by applicable U.S. and foreign tax authorities. Any adverse outcome of such a challenge could harm our operating results and financial condition. The determination of our worldwide provision for income taxes and other tax liabilities requires significant judgment and, in the ordinary course of business, there are many transactions and calculations where the ultimate tax determination is complex and uncertain. Moreover, as a multinational business, we have subsidiaries that engage in many intercompany transactions in a variety of tax jurisdictions where the ultimate tax determination is complex and uncertain. Our existing corporate structure and intercompany arrangements have been implemented in a manner we believe is in compliance with current prevailing tax laws. Furthermore, as we operate in multiple taxing jurisdictions, the application of tax laws can be subject to diverging and sometimes conflicting interpretations by tax taxing authorities of these jurisdictions. It is not uncommon for taxing authorities in different countries to have conflicting views with respect to, among other things, the characterization and source of income or other tax items, the manner in which the arm’s-length standard is applied for transfer pricing purposes, or with respect to the valuation of intellectual property. The taxing authorities of the jurisdictions in which we operate may challenge our tax treatment of certain items or the methodologies we use for valuing developed technology or intercompany arrangements, which could impact our worldwide effective tax rate and harm our financial position and operating results.

Further, any changes in the tax laws governing our activities may increase our tax expense, the amount of taxes we pay, or both. For example, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the “TCJA”), enacted on December 22, in 2017, significantly reformed the U.S. federal tax code, reducing the U.S. federal corporate income tax rate, making sweeping changes to the rules governing international business operations, and imposing new limitations on a number of tax benefits, including deductions for business interest and the use of net operating loss carryforwards. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (the “Inflation Reduction Act”), enacted on August 16, 2022, Act”) further amended the U.S. federal tax code, imposing a 15% minimum tax on “adjusted financial statement income” of certain corporations as well as an excise tax on the repurchase or redemption of stock by certain corporations, beginning in the 2023 tax year. In addition, over the last several years, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has been working on a Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (“BEPS”) Project that, if implemented, would change various aspects of the existing framework under which our tax obligations are determined in many of the countries in which we do business. As of December 2024, 2025, over 140 150 countries have approved a framework that imposes a minimum tax rate of 15%, among other provisions. The G7 countries, including the United States, agreed to modify the provisions of the BEPS Project which may limit its impact on us in future years. There can be no assurance that future tax law changes will not increase the rate of the corporate income tax, impose new limitations on deductions, credits or other tax benefits, or make other changes that could impact our cash flows and adversely affect our business, operating results, and financial condition.

We also are subject to non-income taxes, such as payroll, sales, use, value-added, digital services, net worth, property, and goods and services taxes in the United States and various foreign jurisdictions. Specifically, we may be subject to new allocations of tax as a result of increasing efforts by certain jurisdictions to tax activities that may not have been subject to tax under existing tax principles. Companies such as ours may be adversely impacted by such taxes. Tax Taxing authorities may disagree with certain positions we have taken. As a result, we may have exposure to additional tax liabilities that could adversely affect our business, operating results, and financial condition.

We are exposed to fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates.

The preparation of financial statements in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles (“GAAP”) requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the amounts reported in the Consolidated Financial Statements and accompanying notes. We base our estimates on historical experience and on various other assumptions that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances, as provided in the section titled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Critical Accounting Estimates” in Part II, Item 7 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K. The results of these estimates form the basis for making judgments about the carrying values of assets, liabilities, and equity, and the amount of expenses that are not readily apparent from other sources. Significant estimates and judgments that comprise our critical accounting estimates involve the valuation of assets acquired and liabilities assumed in business combinations, combinations at and subsequent to acquisition, valuation of strategic investments, evaluation of tax positions, and evaluation of legal and other contingencies. Our business, operating results, and financial condition could be adversely affected if our assumptions change or if actual circumstances differ from those in our assumptions, which could cause our operating results to differ from the expectations of analysts and investors, resulting in a decline in the trading price of our Class A common stock.

We have funded our operations since inception primarily through equity financings, debt, and cash flows generated from operations. We cannot be certain that our operations will continue to fund our ongoing operations or the growth of our business. We intend to continue to make investments in our business, which investments may require us to secure additional funds. Additional financing may not be available on terms favorable to us, if at all, including due to general macroeconomic conditions, crypto market conditions and any disruptions in the crypto market, instability in the global banking system, increasing regulatory uncertainty and scrutiny or other unforeseen factors. In the event of a downgrade of our credit rating, our ability to raise additional financing may be adversely affected and any future debt offerings or credit arrangements we propose to enter into may be on less favorable terms or terms that may not be acceptable to us. In addition, even if debt financing is available, the cost of additional financing may be significantly higher than our current debt. If we incur additional debt, the debt holders would have rights senior to holders of our common stock to make claims on our assets, and the terms of any debt could restrict our operations, including our ability to pay dividends on our common stock. Furthermore, we have authorized the issuance of “blank check” preferred stock and common stock that our board of directors could use to, among other things, issue shares of our capital stock in the form of blockchain tokens, implement a stockholder shareholder rights plan, or issue other shares of preferred stock or common stock. We may issue shares of capital stock, including in the form of blockchain tokens, to our customers in connection with customer reward or loyalty programs. If we issue additional equity securities, stockholders shareholders will experience dilution, and the new equity securities could have rights senior to those of our currently authorized and issued common stock. The trading prices for our common stock may be highly volatile, which may reduce our ability to access capital on favorable terms or at all. In addition, a slowdown or other sustained adverse downturn in the general economic or crypto asset markets could adversely affect our business and the value of our Class A common stock. Because our decision to raise capital in the future will depend on numerous considerations, including factors beyond our control, we cannot predict or estimate the amount, timing, or nature of any future issuances of securities. As a result, our stockholders shareholders bear the risk of future issuances of debt or equity securities reducing the value of our Class A common stock and diluting their interests.

•issuance of shares of our Class A common stock, whether in connection with an acquisition or upon conversion of some or all of our outstanding 2026 Convertible Notes and Notes, 2029 Convertible Notes, 2030 Convertible Notes, and 2032 Convertible Notes;

•the highly volatile nature of the cryptoeconomy onchain economy and the prices of crypto assets;

•rumors and market speculation involving the cryptoeconomy onchain economy and the regulation thereof, or us or other companies in our industry;

Furthermore, the stock market has recently experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have affected and continue to affect the market prices of equity securities of many companies and financial services and technology companies in particular. These fluctuations often have been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. These broad market and industry fluctuations, as well as general macroeconomic, political and market conditions such as recessions, interest rate changes, extended U.S. federal government shutdowns, or international currency fluctuations, may negatively impact the market price of our Class A common stock. In the past, companies that have experienced volatility in the market price of their stock have been subject to securities class action litigation. We are currently subject to stockholder litigation and the June 2023 SEC Complaint, shareholder litigation, as described in the section titled “Legal Proceedings” in Part I, Item 3 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, and may continue to be the target of these types of actions or additional regulatory uncertainty and scrutiny in the future. Securities or regulatory actions against us could result in substantial costs and divert our management’s attention from other business concerns, which could harm our business.

The dual class structure of our common stock has the effect of concentrating voting control with those stockholders, shareholders, including our directors, executive officers, and 5% stockholders, shareholders, and their respective affiliates. As a result of this structure, our Chief Executive Officer has and trusts established by our Chief Executive Officer collectively have control over key decision making as a result of his control of controlling a majority of our voting stock. This ownership will limit or preclude your ability to influence corporate matters, including the election of directors, amendments of our organizational documents, and any merger, consolidation, sale of all or substantially all of our assets, or other major corporate transaction requiring stockholder shareholder approval.

Our Class B common stock has twenty votes per share, and our Class A common stock has one vote per share. Mr. Armstrong is and the independent trustee of trusts established by Mr. Armstrong, collectively, are currently able to exercise voting rights with respect to a majority of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock and, along with our directors, other executive officers, and 5% stockholders, shareholders, and their affiliates, these stockholders shareholders hold in the aggregate a substantial majority of the voting power of our capital stock. Because of the twenty-to-one voting ratio between our Class B common stock and our Class A common stock, the holders of our Class B common stock, including Mr. Armstrong, collectively are expected to continue to control a significant percentage of the combined voting power of our common stock and therefore be able to control all matters submitted to our stockholders shareholders for approval until the earliest to occur of (i) the date fixed by the board of directors that is no less than 61 days and no more than 180 days after the date that the aggregate number of shares of Class B common stock held by Brian Armstrong and his affiliates is less than 25% of the aggregate number of shares of Class B common stock held by Mr. Armstrong and his affiliates on April 1, 2021, the date of effectiveness of the registration statement on Form S-1 for the listing of our Class A common stock on Nasdaq; (ii) the date and time specified by affirmative vote of the holders of at least 66-2/3% of the outstanding shares of Class B common stock, voting as a single class, and the affirmative vote of at least 66-2/3% of the then serving members of our board of directors, which must include the affirmative vote of Mr. Armstrong, if either (A) Mr. Armstrong is serving on our board of directors and has not been terminated for cause or resigned except for good reason (as each term is defined in our restated certificate of incorporation) formation) from his position as our Chief Executive Officer or (B) Mr. Armstrong has not been removed for cause or resigned from the position of Chairman of the board of directors; and (iii) the death or disability (as defined in our restated certificate of incorporation) formation) of Mr. Armstrong, when all outstanding shares of Class B common stock will convert automatically into shares of Class A common stock. Holders of our Class A common stock are not entitled to vote separately as a single class except under certain limited circumstances. This concentrated control may limit or preclude your ability to influence corporate matters for the foreseeable future, including the election of directors, amendments of our organizational documents, and any merger, consolidation, sale of all or substantially all of our assets, or other major corporate transaction requiring stockholder shareholder approval. In addition, this may prevent or discourage unsolicited acquisition proposals or offers for our capital stock that you may believe are in your best interest as one of our stockholders. shareholders. In addition, Mr. Armstrong has the ability to control significant influence over (i) the management and major strategic investments of our company as a result of his position as our Chief Executive Officer and his ability to control (ii) the election or replacement of our directors. directors as a result of his voting rights. As a board member and officer, Mr. Armstrong owes a fiduciary duty to our stockholders shareholders and must act in good faith in a manner he reasonably believes to be in the best interests of our stockholders. shareholders. As a stockholder, shareholder, even a controlling stockholder, shareholder, Mr. Armstrong is entitled to vote his shares, and shares over which he has voting control, in his own interests, which may not always be in the interests of our stockholders shareholders generally.

Certain stock index providers exclude companies with multiple classes of shares of common stock from being added to certain stock indices. In addition, several stockholder shareholder advisory firms and large institutional investors oppose the use of multiple class structures. As a result, the dual class structure of our common stock may prevent the inclusion of our Class A common stock in such indices, may cause stockholder shareholder advisory firms to publish negative commentary about our corporate governance practices or otherwise seek to cause us to change our capital structure, and may result in large institutional investors not purchasing shares of our Class A common stock. Any exclusion from stock indices could result in less demand for our Class A common stock. Any actions or publications by stockholder shareholder advisory firms or institutional investors critical of our corporate governance practices or capital structure could also adversely affect the value of our Class A common stock.

We also may issue our capital stock or securities convertible into our capital stock, including in the form of blockchain tokens, from time to time in connection with a financing, an acquisition, investments, pursuant to customer rewards, loyalty programs, and other incentive plans, or otherwise. Any such issuance could result in substantial dilution to our existing stockholders shareholders and cause the market price of our Class A common stock to decline.

In October 2024, our board of directors authorized and approved the Share Repurchase Program, a share repurchase program, which provides provided for the repurchase of up to $1.0 billion of our outstanding Class A common stock without expiration. In October 2025, our board of directors (i) increased the aggregate repurchase authorization under the program from $1.0 billion to $2.0 billion and (ii) expanded the scope of the repurchases to include a portion of the aggregate principal amount of our outstanding 2026 Convertible Notes, 2029 Convertible Notes, 2030 Convertible Notes, 2032 Convertible Notes, and both series of Senior Notes (collectively, the “Notes”). In January 2026, our board of directors approved a $2.0 billion increase in the authorization of our previously announced repurchase program from $2.0 billion to $4.0 billion (as modified, the “Repurchase Program”). Repurchases may be made from time to time in the open market (including through trading plans intended to qualify under Rule 10b5-1 under the Securities Exchange Act), Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”)), in privately negotiated transactions, in a tender offer, or by other methods in accordance with the applicable federal and state laws and regulations. The timing of any repurchases will depend on market conditions and other considerations, and will be made at our discretion. The Share Repurchase Program does not obligate us to repurchase any dollar amount or number of shares of our Class A common stock, stock or Notes and the program may be modified, suspended, or discontinued at any time.

The Share Repurchase Program could affect the price of our Class A common stock and increase the volatility thereof. Price volatility may cause the average price at which we repurchase our Class A common stock or Notes in a given period to exceed the stock’s price at a given point in time. There can be no assurance that the Share Repurchase Program will have a positive impact on our Class A common stock price or net income (loss) per share. Important factors that could cause us to discontinue or decrease share repurchases under the Share Repurchase Program include, among others: unfavorable market conditions; the market price of our Class A common stock; the nature of other investment or strategic opportunities presented to us from time to time; our ability to make appropriate, timely, and beneficial decisions as to when, how, and whether to repurchase shares under the Share Repurchase Program; effect repurchases; and the availability of funds necessary to fulfill such repurchases.

Provisions in our charter documents and under Delaware Texas law, and certain rules imposed by regulatory authorities, could make an acquisition of us, which may be beneficial to our stockholders, shareholders, more difficult, limit attempts by our stockholders shareholders to replace or remove our current management, limit our stockholders’ shareholders’ ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us or our directors, officers, or employees, and limit the price of our Class A common stock.

Provisions in our restated certificate of incorporation formation and restated bylaws may have the effect of delaying or preventing a merger, acquisition, or other change of control of our company that the stockholders shareholders may consider favorable. In addition, because our board of directors is responsible for appointing the members of our management team, these provisions may frustrate or prevent any attempts by our stockholders shareholders to replace or remove our current management by making it more difficult for stockholders shareholders to replace members of our board of directors. Our restated certificate of incorporation formation and restated bylaws include provisions that:

•require super-majority voting to amend some provisions in our restated certificate of incorporation formation and restated bylaws;

•provide that only our Chief Executive Officer, the chairperson of our board of directors, or a majority of our board of directors directors, or the holders of not less than 50% of the voting power of our shareholders will be authorized to call a special meeting of stockholders; shareholders;

•provide for advance notice requirements for nominations for election to our board of directors or for proposing matters that can be acted upon by stockholders shareholders at annual stockholder shareholder meetings.

Our restated bylaws and certificate of incorporation contains formation contain an exclusive forum provision and jury trial waiver for certain claims, respectively, which could limit our stockholders’ shareholders’ ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us or our directors, officers, or employees.

Our restated certificate of incorporation, bylaws, to the fullest extent permitted by law, provides that the Business Court of Chancery in the First Business Court Division of the State of Delaware Texas is the exclusive forum for any derivative action or proceeding brought on our behalf; any action asserting a claim that is based upon a breach of fiduciary duty; any action asserting a claim against us duty owed by, or other wrongdoing by, any current or former director, officer, stockholder, shareholder, employee or agent of ours, arising pursuant to the DGCL, TBOC, our restated certificate of incorporation, formation, or our restated bylaws; any action asserting a claim against us that is governed by the internal affairs doctrine; or any action asserting an “internal corporate claim” as defined in Section 115 2.115 of the DGCL. TBOC. In addition, our certificate of formation provides that we, and our shareholders, directors, and officers, waive their rights to trial by jury in any legal proceeding arising out of or relating to any “internal entity claim.”

Moreover, Section 22 of the Securities Act creates concurrent jurisdiction for federal and state courts over all claims brought to enforce any duty or liability created by the Securities Act or the rules and regulations thereunder and our restated certificate of incorporation provides bylaws provide that the federal district courts of the United States of America are, to the fullest extent permitted by law, the exclusive forum for resolving any complaint asserting a cause of action arising under the Securities Act, or a Federal Forum Provision, unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum. While there can be no assurance that federal or state courts will follow the holding of the Delaware Supreme Court or determine that the Federal Forum Provision should be enforced in a particular case, application of the Federal Forum Provision means that suits brought by our stockholders shareholders to enforce any duty or liability created by the Securities Act must be brought in federal court and cannot be brought in state court. Section 27 of the Exchange Act creates exclusive federal jurisdiction over all claims brought to enforce any duty or liability created by the Exchange Act or the rules and regulations thereunder. The Federal Forum Provision applies to suits brought to enforce any duty or liability created by the Exchange Act to the fullest extent permitted by law. Accordingly, actions by our stockholders shareholders to enforce any duty or liability created by the Exchange Act or the rules and regulations thereunder must be brought in federal court. Our stockholders shareholders will not be deemed to have waived our compliance with the federal securities laws and the regulations promulgated thereunder.

Any person or entity purchasing or otherwise acquiring or holding any interest in any of our securities will be deemed to have notice of and consented to our exclusive forum provisions, including the Federal Forum Provision. These provisions may limit our stockholders’ shareholders’ ability to bring a claim in a judicial forum they find favorable for disputes with us or our directors, officers, or other employees, which may discourage lawsuits against us and our directors, officers, and other employees. Alternatively, if a court were to find the choice of forum provision contained in our restated certificate of incorporation bylaws to be inapplicable or unenforceable in an action, we may incur additional costs associated with resolving such action in other jurisdictions, which could harm our business, operating results, and financial condition.