Coinbase quarterly profit jumps on subscription revenue boost
Retail trading volumes remained sluggish in the second quarter as investor appetite remained muted amid regulatory and market uncertainty, despite a rebound in crypto prices.
A bullish crypto market also prompted many retail investors to hold on to their digital assets in anticipation of higher returns, limiting trading activity.
Transaction revenue fell 2% to $764.3 million. However, revenue from the company's subscription and services unit — which includes businesses outside of trading — rose 9.5% to $655.8 million.
Net profit attributable to common stockholders rose to $1.43 billion, or $5.14 per share, in the three months ended June 30, compared with $36.13 million, or 14 cents apiece, a year earlier.
Net profit was largely driven by gains on the fair value remeasurement of the company's investment in stablecoin issuer Circle (CRCL.N), opens new tab and gains on its crypto asset investment portfolio, Coinbase said.
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The Guardian
21 minutes ago
- The Guardian
What will the AI revolution mean for the global south?
I come from Trinidad and Tobago. As a country that was once colonized by the British, I am wary of the ways that inequalities between the global north and global south risk being perpetuated in the digital age. When we consider the lack of inclusion of the global south in discussions about artificial intelligence (AI), I think about how this translates to an eventual lack of economic leverage and geopolitical engagement in this technology that has captivated academics within the industrialised country I reside, the United States. As a scientist, I experienced an early rite of passage into the world of Silicon Valley, the land of techno-utopianism, and the promise of AI as a net positive for all. But, as an academic attending my first academic AI conference in 2019, I began to notice inconsistencies in the audience to whom the promise of AI was directed. AI researchers can often identify consistent choices for locations where such conferences are hosted, and where they are not. NeurIPS, one of the top AI conferences, has highlighted annual issues for obtaining visas for academic attendees and citizens from the African continent. Attending such a prestigious conference in the field grants one the opportunity to gain access to peers in the field, new collaborations and feedback on one's work. I often hear the word 'democratisation' within the AI community, an implication of equity in access, opportunity and merit for contribution regardless of one's country of origin. Associate professor of economics Fadhel Kaboub talks about how 'a lack of vision for oneself results in being a part of someone else's vision', reflecting on how systematically lacking an access to infrastructure results in local trade deficits in economies. As in the time of Nafta's promise of 'free trade', promises of 'AI democratisation' today still exist and benefit mainly countries with access to tech hubs not located in the global south. While the United States and other industrialized countries dominate in access to computational power and research activity, much of the low-paid manual labour involved in labelling data and the global underclass in artificial intelligence still exists in the global south. Much like coffee, cocoa, bauxite and sugar cane are produced in the global south, exported cheaply and sold at a premium in more industrialized countries, over the past few years we have seen influence in AI inextricably tied to energy consumption. Countries that can afford to consume more energy have more leverage in reinforcing power to shape the future direction of AI and what is considered valuable within the AI academic community. In 2019, Mary L Gray and Siddharth Suri published Ghost Work, which exposed the invisible labour of technology today, and at the beginning of my tenure at graduate school, the heavily cited paper Decolonial AI: Decolonial Theory as Sociotechnical Foresight in Artificial Intelligence was published. It has been five years since these seminal works. What would an AI community inspired by the Brics organisation, which united major emerging economies to advocate for themselves in a system dominated by western countries, look like for the global south? I often ask myself how AI has contributed to our legacy, and whose stories it won't tell. Has AI mitigated issues of mistrust and corruption in less-resourced countries? Has it benefited our civic communities or narrowed educational gaps between less-resourced regions? How will it make society better, and whose society will it make better? Who will be included in that future? A historical mistrust can impede adoption by developing countries. Furthermore, many developing countries have weak institutional infrastructures, poor or nonexistent laws and regulatory frameworks for data projection and cybersecurity. Therefore, even with an improved information infrastructure, they are likely to function at a disadvantage in the global information marketplace. A currency is only as good as its perceived global trust. When thinking about the democratization in AI and a vision of what it could be in years to come, AI's survival requires including more perspectives from regions such as the global south. Countries from the global south should work together to build their own markets and have a model of sovereignty for their data and data labour. Economic models often consider a definition of development that includes a measure of improvement in the quality of life of the most marginalized of its people. It is my hope that in the future that will extend to our evaluation of AI. Krystal Maughan is a PhD student at the University of Vermont studying differential privacy and machine learning
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
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After the latest escalation on Friday, and some worrying US jobs numbers, share prices took a hit, sliding by about 1%. But this is a setback, rather than a rout. A further slide could be ignited by this capricious president. Trump's decision to fire the official in charge of labour market data and his war on the independence of the US Federal Reserve will make matters worse. But despite the warnings of untold economic damage from the US tariff war earlier this year, the American economy has proven surprisingly resilient in recent months. Last week, the president seized on US growth figures showing the economy had expanded at an annualised rate of 3% in the second quarter – far in excess of the 2.4% rate predicted on Wall Street. Could the 'fake news' media have it wrong? Are tariff wars 'good, and easy to win,' as Trump claims? 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Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion When US businesses exhaust their pre-tariff stockpiles, it is likely that prices will creep higher. Meanwhile, the uncertainty of an erratic president is hitting jobs and investment. Last week's US jobs market data has reignited fears over the resilience of the American economy. Tariffs are weighing on business confidence and steadily creeping into consumer prices. GDP growth of 3% might appear robust on the face of things, but this figure was heavily influenced by the 0.5% fall in output in the first quarter, when the surge in US firms rushing to beat Trump's tariffs distorted activity. Growth in the first half averaged 1.25%, markedly slower than the 2.8% rate for 2024 as a whole. Part of the reason Wall Street remains sanguine about this is the continued belief that things could have turned out worse. 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The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘We got a lot of honks in solidarity': anti-Musk protests ripple at LA's Tesla Diner
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For months, protesters who oppose the billionaire's political power have demonstrated outside of Tesla showrooms across the US and the world, hoping that by applying pressure to Tesla, a publicly-traded company, the Tesla Takedown movement can have an impact on Musk's behavior. 'Musk thought [the diner] would be good for him, but it's actually great for anti-Tesla protesters as well, to give us increased visibility,' said Joel Lava, who has been organizing weekly Tesla Takedown protests outside a Tesla service station in Burbank, California. Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Though Musk has officially left his role within the Trump administration, and has since publicly feuded with the president, the devastating effects of his so-called 'department of government efficiency' (Doge) live on, Lava said. Lava cited recent reports that the US had thrown away nearly 500 metric tons of emergency food aid this spring, in the wake of Doge's dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Global health officials have also said Musk's budget-cutting efforts have thrown global HIV prevention efforts, including the rollout of a new 'miracle' drug, into chaos. There are hometown considerations, as well, Lava added: Musk has a history of anti-trans comments, and the diner is right on the border of West Hollywood, one of LA's historic LGBTQ+ neighborhoods. Protesters outside the Hollywood diner last weekend carried signs reading 'Fuck Nazi Billionaires' and 'Boycott Tesla'. 'We WILL NOT REST until the world has internalized the truth that TESLA FUNDS FASCISM,' organizers wrote in a post advertising the demonstrations, which one Los Angeles organizer estimated attracted about 100 people on Saturday, and about 85 on Sunday. A Los Angeles police spokesperson described the two demonstrations in Hollywood as 'peaceful protests'. Social media video of the diner demonstrations showed a few apparent Musk supporters yelling at protesters, including one young man caught on video describing himself as 'a proud fascist'. Dave, a Los Angeles-based Tesla Takedown organizer, said a few drivers of newer Teslas and Cybertrucks around the diner had screamed at the protesters, and 'there were some people who were doing the Sieg Heil [salute]'. At least one Cybertruck driver had gotten out of his vehicle to confront protesters, Dave said. The organizer asked not to be identified by his full name because he feared that protesting against Musk might affect his employment opportunities. Other Tesla fans waiting in line outside the diner simply seemed confused by the political rhetoric, Dave said, and other people driving by the diner were audibly supportive. 'We got a lot of honks and fist-pumps in solidarity, and many of those were even from Tesla drivers themselves – especially the people driving the older models of Teslas,' he said. Since it opened at 4.20pm last Monday, the diner has attracted Musk fans from across southern California, as well as curious tourists. At about midday on Wednesday last week, many fans in line had brought children with them, and some said that their kids were especially excited to see Musk's diner, which they had heard about on TikTok or YouTube. One Tesla Diner customer told the LA Public Press on Saturday that the protesters' comparisons of Musk to a Nazi did not make sense to him. 'If he's a fascist, who has he killed?' the man asked. 'Nazis kill people, from what I understand.' Dave, the Tesla Takedown organizer, said the demonstrators were considering more protests outside the diner, but that the group has already received at least one social media threat that they will be assaulted if they protest again next weekend. Asked about those threatening social media posts, which came from an anonymous pro-Musk Bluesky account, an LAPD spokesperson said the department was not currently aware of 'any specific threat'. For Angelenos who live in the neighborhood surrounding Musk's new diner, its sudden popularity has sparked a litany of complaints. Local news outlets have reported that neighborhood residents have complained of the chaos and traffic it has brought to the neighborhood, including 'insane gridlock from 1pm to 1 am', and concerns about the giant movie screens blocking the view from nearby apartments. 'If you can send people to Mars, you should be able to figure out how to make this doable for residents,' one resident told ABC7 News.
