Coinbase, the listed U.S crypto exchange, is launching an end-to-end token sales platform which Matt Hougan, chief Investment officer of digital asset fund manager Bitwise, said this is the beginning of crypto reinventing capital formation.

On 10 November 2025 Coinbase said in a blog that it will be  launching an end-to-end token sales platform to create a more sustainable and transparent way for projects to distribute tokens and decentralize.

Hougan said in a report that crypto is going to reinvent finance.

– Bitcoin is reinventing gold.
– Stablecoins are reinventing dollars.
– Tokenization is reinventing trading.

Coinbase's ICO platform introduces a fourth area crypto could reinvent: capital formation.

Watch this space. A smarter and better-regulated ICO boom could forever change… pic.twitter.com/ZrwFtCMqbm

— Bitwise (@BitwiseInvest) November 12, 2025

“But this week, we added a fourth category: capital formation,” said Hougan. “I think it will be a defining theme of crypto in 2026.”

Hougan argued that the current system for capital raising is “sclerotic”, with high fees and big procedural hurdles, and is heavily skewed against retail investors. Paul Atkins, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has called for new regulations and safe harbors to allow high-quality ICOs which would help companies raise more capital.

However, Hougan also acknowledged that the boom in Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) between 2017 and 2018, where crypto tokens were sold to retail investors, were a “complete disaster” as most projects turned out to be scams.

Brian Armstrong, co-founder & chief executive at Coinbase, said on X that the firm spent a long time studying all of the things wrong with token launches, and designed a new model to try to fix those things.

Token sales are so back.

Launching tokens has always been a core part of the crypto ecosystem. It’s been a source of incredible innovation and product development.

But it’s also caused serious problems – unfair access, max extraction, and misaligned incentives – all of which…

— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) November 11, 2025

“Token sales on Coinbase are designed to give users early access to their favorite projects, and reward real, loyal users through our allocation algorithm,” said Armstrong. “Our systems also penalize behavior like flipping, aiming to align incentives between projects and their community.”

Coinbase will use an algorithm that is designed to promote broader distribution and limit asset concentration among large purchasers and users that sell their tokens less than 30 days after listing may receive smaller allocations in future sales. In addition, Coinbase will require issuers to provide key disclosures and issuers and their affiliates will be limited from selling any tokens for six months after the public sale on the exchange. Access will be provided to retail across most regions globally at launch and that investors in the U.S. will be able to participate for the first time since 2018.

Coinbase will enforce key requirements, including vetting teams, requiring disclosures, and ensuring that insiders cannot sell tokens for six months following the launch,” said Hougan. “In short, through self-regulation, it aims to fix a lot of what was wrong with the 2017-2018 ICO era.”

Kudos to the @monad and @coinbase teams for disclosing market makers in the Monad ICO docs. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before. This type of transparency is the way. pic.twitter.com/Z2jg5whBYk

— papiofficial (@shmula) November 11, 2025

Hougan anticipates that there will be at least half-dozen $1bn ICOs through platforms like Coinbase in 2026, many of which will be successful.

“Over time, I’d expect more and more projects will lean toward the direct ICO model over the traditional model,” he added. “More broadly, I think of an ICO renaissance as another major proof point for crypto as a whole.”

Security Token Market said in a newsletter: “When Coinbase evolves this to supporting the increased compliance needs of a regulated primary tokenized securities offering, it will be a game changer with the amount of reach they have and take tokenization more mainstream. Combine the primary offering with secondary market trading and collateralized borrowing & lending (like they now have for crypto using Morpho) and you have a more liquid, useful, and functioning ecosystem at scale.”