Morning Minute: Coinbase Buys Cobie’s Echo & Up Only NFT for $375M

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors are red overnight; BTC -2% at $108,500
• Coinbase buys Cobie’s Echo + Up Only NFT for $375M
• Coinbase urges US Treasury Dept to update its AML rules for new age
• Prediction markets combine for $2B+ in weekly volume, new record
• SLERF team processes 35,000 SOL in refunds

💰 Coinbase Buys Echo & Up Only for $375M

Coinbase just made a massive bet.

And its $25M NFT purchase was just the appetizer for what is now a blockbuster deal.

📌 What Happened

Last night, Coinbase bought the infamous Up Only NFT from Cobie and Ledger for $25M.

That NFT, listed at $25M as a joke, gives the buyer the right to redeem 8 episodes of the Up Only show hosted by Cobie and Ledger Status.

For those unfamiliar, Up Only was the defining livestream of the last cycle—a chaotic, unfiltered, A-list crypto show hosted by Cobie and Ledger that routinely pulled in huge views and dominated Crypto Twitter discourse from 2021–2023.

Now we know that Coinbase actually buried the lede.

This morning, Coinbase shared that they have also bought Cobie’s Echo platform for $375M (the Up Only NFT was included in this package).

Echo is widely considered the top on-chain capital raising platform (think: ICOs) and has helped raise $140M+ from 9,000+ individuals across 340 deals.

Now, Coinbase will integrate it to support broader crypto token sales via Sonar and plan to expand into tokenized securities and RWAs over time.

🗣️ What They’re Saying

“The “why” is simple. We want to create more accessible, efficient, and transparent capital markets.” – Coinbase, in their acquisition post

“when i started building echo 2 years ago, i knew it had 95% chance of failing. to be honest, i couldnt really imagine any other outcome, but i thought at least it may be a noble failure worth attempting. i certainly didn’t think echo would be sold to coinbase, but, here we are: today coinbase bought echo for ~$375m.” – Echo founder, Cobie

🧠 Why It Matters

Regarding the Echo acquisition, this feels like a major win for the on-chain economy.

Builders will have easier access to capital and community via fundraising tools.

Investors will also have new opportunities to invest in early-stage crypto products (and soon, tokenized securities and RWAs).

Coinbase wins here as well, as they continue to expand beyond an initial CEX model.

CT wins here too, with its favorite show coming back, and hopefully it will ignite the bull market along with it.

There will be big attention put on which guests they choose, and why.

It seems like Hyperliquid founder Jeff is already in talks to be the first guest, which will put Hyperliquid (and the HYPE token) in the limelight.

Whatever future guests get selected will get similar attention, and expect fierce competition.

The show’s return likely does put more attention on CT’s growing financial entertainment sector, with streamers like Threadguy pulling in big dollars from brands like Phantom and Polymarket, and shops like Blockworks and The Rollup fine-tuning their streams lately (along with some big sponsors).

Now let’s hope the “up only” meme turns into reality…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Memes

A few Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

In Corporate Treasuries / ETFs

In Memes

• Memecoin leaders are mostly red along with majors; DOGE -3%, Shiba -2%, PEPE -4%, PENGU -4%, BONK -5%, TRUMP -2%, SPX -6%, and FARTCOIN -3%
• TIBBIR jumped 14% to $340M and a new ATH; the UpOnly meme on Base rallied 4,000% to $2.3M
• BSC continued to lead meme volume with 币安人生 +37% to $320M up top; Easytopredict led SOL memes +17,000% to $14M
• SLERF fell 20% after processing 53,000 SOL in refunds to users impacted by its early burn
• House of Doge bought control of Italian club Triestina Calcio 1918 and added Roger Rai as an advisor

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here’s a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

• NFT leaders were mostly red on Monday; Punks even at 42 ETH, Pudgy -2% at 7.2, BAYC -3% at 7.3 ETH; Hypurr’s -2% at 1,220 HYPE
• Nemesis Arena (+57%) and Infinex Patrons (+22%) were top movers
• NFT Strategy tokens all fell 5-20%, with PNKSTR holding up top at $75M mc