Coinbase Surges as Regulators Bypass Congress on Crypto Rules

Coinbase shares jumped more than 11% on Sept. 18, closing at $194.25, as bitcoin also climbed above $80,000 and other crypto-linked stocks rose. The move followed a major regulatory shift: two days earlier, the Senate blocked the CLARITY Act, a bill that would have created a comprehensive federal framework for digital assets. After the setback, regulators acted quickly. On Sept. 17, the SEC granted a five-year conditional exemption allowing qualified blockchain trading venues and liquidity providers to offer tokenized versions of U.S.-listed stocks, with equivalent voting rights and dividends and trading pauses when the underlying stock’s primary exchange halts. Coinbase has tokenized equities on its Base layer-2 network. The company also filed with the CFTC to list cash-settled single-stock perpetual futures on more than 50 names. Wall Street lifted price targets, including Goldman Sachs to $219.