The Wall Street veteran, who made a name betting successfully against corporate frauds like Enron, expects Coinbase’s fees to compress from their current levels as competition from rivals including Binance, Kraken, Gemini, and FTX intensify.

He estimates the 150 basis points it charges on trading volume down to potentially as low as 50 bps, already down from a "stunningly high" 400 bps it collected at one point.

A full quarter of its roughly 4,950 employees were added in the first three months of the year alone.

Chanos’s short puts him on the other side of the bet from Cathie Wood, who recently gave Coinbase a morale boost after she opportunistically scooped up shares earlier this month

Coinbase still collects 87% of its topline from trading commissions. [...]

It also is encouraging more users to think beyond simply buying and selling assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Coinbase finished its Q1 shareholder letter with the optimistic hashtag #WAGMI.