Major U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has acquired Echo, a blockchain-based crowdfunding platform that allows communities to invest collectively in early-stage projects and startups.
The $375 million deal, announced on Tuesday, brings Echo under Coinbase’s expanding ecosystem of onchain products. The platform was founded by well-known crypto trader Jordan Fish, popularly known as Cobie, less than two years ago.
The acquisition comes just a day after Coinbase transferred $25 million in USDC to Cobie’s wallet to purchase and burn a non-fungible token (NFT), coinciding with the revival of his UpOnly podcast.
I certainly didn’t think Echo would be sold to Coinbase, but here we are, Cobie wrote on X, confirming the acquisition.
Echo’s origins and rapid growth
Launched in April 2024, Echo debuted in beta with the goal of democratizing startup fundraising through community-led capital pools. Within its first eight months, the platform helped raise over $51 million across 131 deals, including early funding rounds for Ethena, the protocol behind the USDe stablecoin.
Echo also introduced Sonar, a tool enabling founders to self-host public token sales on their preferred blockchain networks including Base, Solana, Hyperliquid, and Cardano.
Following the acquisition, Echo will remain an independent platform “for now”, Cobie said, while Coinbase plans to integrate Sonar into its broader infrastructure.
Integrating Echo’s tools will help us enable more direct community participation, joining projects with capital, entirely onchain, Coinbase said in a statement. The company added that it plans to expand Echo’s infrastructure to support tokenized securities and real-world assets over time.
Public token sales and the ICO revival
Coinbase’s move signals growing institutional interest in community-driven fundraising models, a trend that draws comparisons to the initial coin offering (ICO) boom of 2017.
According to an October 16 report by Tiger Research, public token sales have been making a comeback through launchpads like Legion, Buidlpad, Sonar, and Kaito. While the original ICO wave collapsed amid scams and regulatory scrutiny, modern launchpads aim to improve transparency and compliance.
Public sales are resurging in new forms, suggesting that such models serve as effective tools for projects to attract early users and liquidity.
Even figures linked to former U.S. President Donald Trump’s circle have recently voiced support for an ICO revival.
While Echo’s acquisition by Coinbase is not a direct return to ICO-style fundraising, it represents a significant step toward regulated, onchain community investing potentially reshaping how early-stage crypto projects access capital.