Today in crypto, Coinbase has distanced its blockchain network Base from a token it was highly criticized for sharing, a US appeals court paused the SEC’s case against Ripple amid settlement talks, and a Coinbase report paints a bleak picture of the crypto market but anticipates a rebound in late 2025.
Coinbase distances Base from highly criticized memecoin that dumped $15M
Crypto exchange Coinbase has distanced its blockchain network Base from a memecoin it shared on X on April 16 that saw massive backlash after the token rapidly gained, then dropped in value.
Base shared an image on X with its marketing tagline, “Base is for everyone,” alongside a link to a token of the same name on Zora, a social network where users can make posts into crypto tokens.
The token hit a peak market capitalization of $17.1 million just over an hour after it was created before it then dropped by nearly 90% in the next 20 minutes to $1.9 million before making a recovery.
A Coinbase spokeswoman distanced Base from the token, telling Cointelegraph that “Base did not launch a token. This is not an official Base token, and Base did not sell this token.”
“Base posted on Zora, which automatically tokenizes content,” the spokeswoman said.
Hundreds of X posts criticized Base over the token, while others argued Base just poorly executed a plan to try to redefine memecoins.
Base creator Jesse Pollack also defended Base's creation of the token, saying on X that “someone has to normalize putting all of our content onchain. I'm not afraid for it to be us.”
Court grants 60-day pause of SEC, Ripple appeals case
An appellate court has granted a joint request from Ripple Labs and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to pause an appeal in a 2020 SEC case against Ripple amid settlement negotiations.
In an April 16 filing in the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the court approved a joint SEC-Ripple motion to hold the appeal in abeyance — temporarily pausing the case — for 60 days. As part of the order, the SEC is expected to file a status report by June 15.
The SEC’s case against Ripple and its executives, filed in December 2020, was expected to begin winding down after Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse announced on March 19 that the commission would be dropping its appeal against the blockchain firm. A federal court found Ripple liable for $125 million in an August ruling, resulting in both the SEC and blockchain firm filing an appeal and cross-appeal, respectively.
However, once US President Donald Trump took office and leadership of the SEC moved from former chair Gary Gensler to acting chair Mark Uyeda, the commission began dropping multiple enforcement cases against crypto firms in a seeming political shift. Ripple pledged $5 million in XRP to Trump’s inauguration fund, and Garlinghouse and chief legal officer Stuart Alderoty attended events supporting the US president.
April 16 order approving a motion to hold an appeal in abeyance. Source: PACER
Crypto in a bear market, rebound likely in Q3 — Coinbase
A monthly market review by publicly traded US-based crypto exchange Coinbase shows that while the crypto market has contracted, it appears to be gearing up for a better quarter.
According to Coinbase’s April 15 monthly outlook for institutional investors, the altcoin market cap shrank by 41% from its December 2024 highs of $1.6 trillion to $950 billion by mid-April. BTC Tools data shows that this metric touched a low of $906.9 billion on April 9 and stood at $976.9 billion at the time of writing.
Venture capital funding to crypto projects has reportedly decreased by 50%–60% from 2021–22. In the report, Coinbase’s global head of research, David Duong, highlighted that a new crypto winter may be upon us.
“Several converging signals may be pointing to the start of a new ‘crypto winter’ as some extreme negative sentiment has set in due to the onset of global tariffs and the potential for further escalations,” he said.
Duong cited some metrics to indicate when the crypto market is moving between bull and bear market phases, including risk-adjusted performance and the 200-day moving average.
Another metric was the Bitcoin Z-score, which compares market value and realized value to identify overbought and oversold conditions. A Z-score shows how unusual current price performance is when compared to historic data.
This metric “naturally accounts for crypto’s larger volatility,” but it is also slow to react. This metric tends to generate few signals in stable markets. Coinbase’s model, based on it, determined that the bull market ended in late February but has since deemed the market neutral.