Major US cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has acquired Echo, a platform that allows communities to raise capital targeting early-stage projects and startups.
Coinbase has struck a $375 million deal to acquire Echo, a crowdfunding platform founded by crypto trader Jordan Fish, known in the community as Cobie, the company announced on Tuesday.
The acquisition came the day after Coinbase sent $25 million in USDC (USDC) to Cobie’s wallet to acquire and burn a non-fungible token (NFT) and revive his UpOnly podcast.
“I certainly didn’t think Echo would be sold to Coinbase, but here we are: Today Coinbase bought Echo for about $375 million,” Cobie wrote on X.
Ethena was the first project to raise with Echo
The acquisition came less than two years after Cobie launched Echo in beta in April 2024 with a mission to enable communities to invest together in private funding rounds.
In the eight months since launching, the platform has raised at least $51 million in funding, with 131 deals closed, including for Ethena, a synthetic dollar protocol behind one of the fastest-growing yield-bearing stablecoins on the market, USDe (USDE).
According to Cobie, Ethena was the first project ever to fundraise using Echo, highlighting the platform’s sharp focus on early-stage investing.
In May, Echo introduced Sonar, a software product allowing founders to self-host public token sales on their own terms and preferred blockchains such as Hyperliquid, Base, Solana or Cardano.
Echo will remain standalone…“for now”
Following Coinbase’s acquisition, Echo will remain a “standalone platform under its current brand for now,” Cobie said in an X post on Tuesday, adding that the Sonar product will be integrated into Coinbase.
The integration will “likely” introduce new ways for founders to access investors, while investors will have those new investment opportunities on Coinbase, he added.
“Integrating Echo’s tools will help us enable more direct community participation, joining projects with capital, entirely onchain,” Coinbase said, adding:
“While we’ll start with crypto token sales via Sonar, we plan to expand support to tokenized securities and real-world assets over time, leveraging Echo’s infrastructure.”
Are ICOs back?
The acquisition of Echo by Coinbase marks a growing trend toward community fundraising, reminiscent of initial coin offerings (ICOs), which boomed in 2017.
According to an Oct. 16 report by Tiger Research, public sales have been increasingly re-emerging in new forms, with launchpads like Legion, Buidlpad, Sonar and Kaito leading the trend.
“The ICO boom peaked in 2017 but rapidly contracted as it lost credibility due to fraud and opaque information,” Tiger Research said, adding that the market subsequently shifted to private sales.
“However, public sales are recently resurging in new forms,” it said, referring to public launchpads like Sonar.
“Short-term hype around public launchpads may cool down. However, public launchpads are expected to persist due to structural demand. They serve as a tool for projects to secure early users and liquidity,” the report concluded.
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While it remains to be seen how the renewed trend of public token sales will unfold, some high-profile figures linked to the Trump administration have called for an ICO revival earlier this year.
“We want to make ICOs great again,” Zak Folkman, co-founder of the Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture World Liberty Financial, said in February.
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