Earlier this year, crypto influencer and investor Cobie (real name Jordan Fish) created a non-fungible token (NFT) related to a defunct podcast he co-hosted with the pseudonymous Ledger during the 2021 crypto bull run and eventual collapse. Yesterday, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong announced that the crypto exchange had purchased this NFT, which cost $25 million (paid via the USDC stablecoin).
According to public statements made by Cobie around the time the NFT was created, the point of the token’s creation was to give anyone who purchased it the power to force Cobie and Ledger to bring back their old podcast, known as Up Only, for eight new episodes. Of course, since this was an NFT without any actual legal contract associated with it, it’s unclear whether the purchase of the token would actually bind the co-hosts to bring back to the podcast under the law.
Just burnt the NFT. Your move @UpOnlyTV @Cobie @ledgerstatus. https://t.co/fuK634sdWn
— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) October 21, 2025
After making the purchase, Coinbase provably burned the NFT—basically a way of transparently removing ownership of it. A few hours later, it became clear that this was mostly just a marketing stunt around Coinbase’s $375 million acquisition of crypto-focused early-stage investment platform Echo, which was founded by Fish in 2023.
Echo is an investment platform that is intended to make fundraising in crypto projects and startups more transparent and inclusive. Throughout crypto’s history, there have been many instances of insiders launching new tokens to dump on the wider public at a later date, so Echo was effectively an attempt to push back on that sort of activity. Some of the notable projects that raised funds via Echo include stablecoin-focused blockchain Plasma and Ethereum layer-two network MegaETH.
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:…
— Cobie (@cobie) October 21, 2025
According to its website, Echo has raised $150 million for over 300 projects via Echo over the past couple of years. According to Cobie, the platform will continue to operate on its own for now, but it will eventually be further integrated into Coinbase’s crypto financial platform.
According to the Wall Street Journal, this is the eighth acquisition Coinbase has made this year, as the crypto exchange and technology platform pushes forward towards its goal of being the all-in-one app for anything having to do with crypto (and, perhaps, finance more generally at some point in the future).
As we reported earlier this week, there is growing concern among a large swathe of the crypto userbase that the industry has lost touch with its original, cypherpunk ethos, and now many products and services are being built simply to empower new or existing institutions.
While Coinbase has been a strong proponent of Ethereum since at least 2016, the exchange recently faced criticism regarding a perceived lack of acknowledgement of that crypto network, which has led to much of its success over the years. While Coinbase’s own Base blockchain is built as a layer-two network on top of the base Ethereum blockchain, the company also recently announced that it is exploring the potential launch of its own proprietary token for that blockchain network.
Crypto related words mentioned at the 2025 @coinbase @base State of Crypto Summit…
crypto: 235x
coin(base): 172x
bitcoin: 62x
usdc: 36x
token: 23x
onchain: 22x
blockchain: 19x
stablecoin: 8x
L2: 1x
ethereum: 1x
solana: 1xDo better.
– The community you’re building on.
— materkel.eth 🦇🔊 (@materkel) June 14, 2025
Due to its long-standing deal with Circle involving the stablecoin issuer’s USDC token and its role as the sole collector of fees on its own blockchain offering, Coinbase sits at the center of many of the crypto userbase’s fears regarding where this technology will head in the future. Additionally, Coinbase is said to be in talks regarding the potential acquisition of stablecoin startup BVNK, according to Fortune.
For many, transacting with a centrally-issued, U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin on a blockchain ledger that generates revenue for that same centralized financial entity is the exact opposite of what Satoshi envisioned when he originally launched Bitcoin in 2009.
As far as the Up Only podcast goes, Cobie has said it is indeed coming back under the new name Unc Only, as the co-hosts have aged a bit during the show’s hiatus. The podcast is slated to begin anew once a slate of guests has been chosen for the eight episodes.
