Benchmark reaffirms Coinbase's "Buy" rating and $270 price target, stating it is surpassing the positioning of cyclical crypto brokers.

BlockBeats News, June 17 — After Coinbase's system update on Tuesday, Benchmark reaffirmed its "Buy" rating for Coinbase (COIN) and maintained a target price of $270. Coinbase closed Tuesday at $169.27, with Benchmark's target price implying approximately 59.5% upside potential. Benchmark analyst Mark Palmer stated that this update advances Coinbase's "everything exchange" strategy, covering tokenized US stocks, equities and crypto options, pre-IPO perpetual futures, prediction markets, AI investment tools, agent payment infrastructure, and consumer financial products. Palmer said, "In our view, yesterday's update provides the clearest evidence to date that the company is rapidly evolving from a cyclical crypto broker to an infrastructure platform connecting emerging on-chain economies with traditional economies."

Benchmark also pointed out that one of the most important aspects of Tuesday's announcement has regulatory implications. The firm mentioned that last month, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved Coinbase as a regulated futures commission merchant, enabling it to offer global crypto perpetual futures and options to U.S. clients via Deribit, a Dubai-based trading platform acquired last year for $2.9 billion.

Benchmark stated that this approval supports Coinbase's plan to integrate liquidity across jurisdictions, allowing both U.S. and international clients to access a broader range of products through a single marketplace. The firm also noted that Coinbase is expanding prediction markets through new crypto binary contracts, launching Coinbase Advisor for U.S. Coinbase One subscribers, and introducing infrastructure tools supporting AI agents and digital payments around Base, further indicating its shift from spot crypto trading to broader financial and on-chain infrastructure.