Coinbase's first Chief Business Officer, Shan Aggarwal, is pointing to a proposed SEC rule change as the next unlock for Bitcoin demand. The rule, if adopted, would let financial advisors hold Bitcoin for their clients. Aggarwal frames it as an access story, with Coinbase providing the infrastructure underneath.
He's also flagging that big banks are quietly increasing their BTC exposure. And Coinbase is working with Citi on stablecoin payments for merchants, alongside a push into collectibles and everyday Bitcoin rewards.
Why the advisor rule matters to Coinbase
Most of the Bitcoin ETFs already sit in Coinbase's custody. That's the boring plumbing that pays off when new pools of money get a green light. Aggarwal's argument is straightforward: advisors run trillions in client assets, and until the SEC rule changes, most of them can't touch Bitcoin directly. Open that door and Coinbase is already holding the keys.
It's not a short-term trade. It's a distribution bet. Coinbase doesn't need to convince every advisor to buy Bitcoin. It just needs to be the default place where the ones who do end up parking it.
Citi deal puts stablecoins in checkout lanes
The collaboration with Citi is aimed at bringing stablecoin payments to merchants. That's a different kind of business than trading fees. Merchant payments are volume, not volatility. They need uptime, compliance, and settlement that doesn't break on a Sunday.
Coinbase has been building that stack for years. Pairing it with Citi's banking relationships gets it in front of sellers who wouldn't otherwise take crypto. No timeline has been given for a rollout.
Banks are already moving, quietly
Aggarwal says big banks are adding BTC exposure. That's notable because banks are usually the last ones to show up. When they do, it's rarely a headline event. It's an allocation line in a quarterly report that nobody tweets about.
Coinbase sits in an odd spot here. It competes with banks on some products and supplies them on others. Custody is the obvious overlap. A bank can build its own desk, but custody is a regulated, capital-intensive business. Most would rather rent.
Collectibles and rewards: the long tail
The collectibles and everyday Bitcoin rewards plays are smaller, but they're consumer-facing. Rewards are a familiar hook. Collectibles are a stranger one, but they fit the same pattern: bring people in through something other than a trading chart.
Coinbase has been trying to be more than an exchange for a while. These are the products that test whether that works.
The SEC rule isn't final. Until it is, advisors can't act, banks won't say much, and the Citi merchant rollout has no public date. Watch the rulemaking docket — that's the clock everything else is running on.
