Coinbase, the crypto exchange and platform, is shifting its core focus from speculative trading toward practical crypto applications in payments, custody and commerce. It is launching predictions markets and tokenized stocks for U.S. users in the months ahead. But the biggest story was in building stablecoin payments and gaining institutional trust. “We see payments as the next big use case in crypto, and believe that the majority of all payments in the economy will eventually run on stablecoin rails,” said Coinbase CEO and Co-founder Brian Armstrong. “One of the biggest areas we are focused on is B2B payments. We think cross-border stablecoin payments is a $40 trillion opportunity and B2B is 75% of that,” added Armstrong. “It’s better if the sender and recipient both want to use the same stablecoin and actually the same underlying payment rail.” Stablecoin revenue rose 12% to $332 million, fueled by a 13% increase in average USDC balances held in Coinbase products. USDC usage also surged off-platform, and Coinbase attributed part of this momentum to an extended rewards program and growing adoption across commerce and payments. Coinbase expects Q3 subscription and services revenue to land between $665 million and $745 million, driven largely by further gains in stablecoin market capitalization and adoption. Base Chain, the Layer 2 infrastructure Coinbase is developing, also now supports real-time settlement of stablecoin payments. Coinbase’s Q2 results also reflect growing institutional interest, particularly through its Prime Financing division and custodial services.