Coinbase Ventures Bets on Privacy, The Big Question Is Why

Coinbase Ventures has published a list of focus areas it considers the most promising for funding in 2026. Among the crypto-related ideas, they highlighted:

• RWA perpetuals,
• exchanges that serve as their own market makers,
• trading terminals for prediction markets,
• perpetual futures markets where collateral can earn yield without closing a leveraged position,
• uncollateralized lending based on on-chain reputation,
• onchain privacy.

The last point is the most surprising, of course. Just a year and a half ago, major exchanges were actively distancing themselves from privacy-focused assets. And now the venture arm of one of the largest exchanges is saying it's ready to fund the development of privacy-preserving assets and blockchains. Why the sudden change?

And even more importantly - why fund this at all? Everyone who needs private transfers already has working solutions, including through rabbit.io:

• Bitcoin - via the Lightning Network
• Stablecoins - via the Liquid network
• Litecoin - through MimbleWimble addresses
• Privacy-native coins like ZEC, DASH, etc. - also work perfectly well

The only exception this year has been Monero. The chain went through several reorganizations, which led to transaction rollbacks and a noticeable increase in wait times.

Monero's chain stability really does feel like a problem that needs to be solved sooner rather than later.

So if you have ideas - reach out to Coinbase Ventures. Who knows, maybe they'll fund your approach, and we'll all benefit from it.

Although, to be honest - I still don’t quite understand why they want to fund this.