Coinbase stock officially joins S&P 500, cementing milestone for company and crypto industry

Coinbase (COIN) on Monday became the first and only cryptocurrency platform to see its shares join the benchmark S&P 500 (^GSPC) index, a milestone crypto bulls cheered during what became a busy week of developments for the company.

Coinbase stock was down 1% shortly after Monday’s open; shares are up more than 25% since news broke a week ago the company would join the index.

“Coinbase joining the S&P 500 means crypto’s here to stay,” Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong told Yahoo Finance last Wednesday.

“It’s going to be in everybody’s 401(k). Everyone’s going to have crypto exposure, you know, at least indirectly through Coinbase, which is great. And it’s also a symbol that crypto is updating the financial system,” he added.

But the news for Coinbase last week wasn’t all positive, as the company disclosed a cyberattack that had compromised customer data. Remediating the incident is expected to cost the company between $180 million and $400 million. Coinbase said no login credentials or passwords were compromised.

Separately, Coinbase confirmed a report from the New York Times that the Securities and Exchange Commission still has an open investigation into whether Coinbase misreported user data years ago.

Enthusiasm for the stock cooled last Thursday following the news, falling 7%.

Coinbase’s chief legal officer, Paul Grewal, said the SEC matter was “a holdover investigation from the prior administration about a metric we stopped reporting two and a half years ago,” adding that “we remain committed to working with the SEC to bring this matter to a close.”

The company’s inclusion comes with bitcoin (BTC-USD) hovering above $102,000 per token, its highest level since January. The cryptocurrency has rallied 37% since President Trump won the White House last year and put in place key figures to forge ahead with a token-friendly framework, a promise on which he campaigned.

One of those moves included placing cryptocurrency advocate Paul Atkins at the helm of the SEC after Gary Gensler stepped down on Jan. 20.

Under Gensler, the agency had charged Coinbase with operating as an unregistered national securities exchange, broker, and clearing agency. In late February, Coinbase announced the SEC had agreed to drop its enforcement case against the company.

Coinbase stock jumped 24% last Tuesday as Coinbase bulls celebrated S&P’s announcement that the stock would join the S&P 500, viewing it as a broader tide shift for crypto under the Trump administration.