Why $EDEL Outperforms Coinbase Stock ($COIN) as a Bet on Tokenized Equities Infrastructure

The tokenized equities market is entering a pivotal phase in 2025, with platforms like Coinbase ($COIN) and Edel Finance ($EDEL) vying to define its infrastructure and distribution. While Coinbase's retail-centric approach has dominated headlines, a deeper analysis reveals that Edel Finance's focus on capital markets infrastructure-specifically lending, borrowing, and yield generation-positions it as a superior long-term bet on the tokenized stocks narrative. This article dissects the strategic divergence between the two players, emphasizing how infrastructure utility outpaces exchange distribution in shaping the future of tokenized equities.

The Tokenized Equities Narrative: Distribution vs. Infrastructure

Tokenized equities aim to replicate traditional stocks on blockchain, enabling fractional ownership, 24/7 trading, and programmable financial tools. However, the market's success hinges on two pillars: distribution (onboarding users) and infrastructure (enabling liquidity, capital efficiency, and risk management). Coinbase and Edel Finance represent these pillars but approach them differently.

Coinbase, with its 105 million users according to reports, is leveraging its retail dominance to democratize access to tokenized equities. Its "Everything Exchange" strategy seeks to merge crypto-native assets with traditional securities, offering users the ability to trade tokenized stocks like Tesla or NVIDIA alongside crypto. Meanwhile, Edel Finance is building the capital markets layer for tokenized equities, transforming static assets into dynamic financial instruments through lending, borrowing, and yield generation.

Coinbase: Distribution at Scale, but Limited by Execution

Coinbase's strength lies in its user base and brand recognition. By integrating tokenized equities into its mainstream platform, it aims to drive mass adoption. For example, its upcoming tokenized equities launch on December 17, 2025, is expected to attract retail investors seeking exposure to stocks like Meta and NVIDIA without traditional brokerage accounts. Additionally, Coinbase's prediction markets-allowing users to trade binary outcomes on events like elections-expand its utility beyond mere trading.

However, Coinbase's strategy is inherently distribution-focused, relying on external infrastructure providers to handle complex financial activities. As noted by onchain analysts, platforms like Edel Finance are critical for enabling secondary use cases such as collateralization and yield generation. Coinbase's role as an onramp is valuable but insufficient to address inefficiencies in traditional securities lending markets, where Edel Finance is already innovating.

Edel Finance: Building the Capital Markets Layer for Tokenized Equities

Edel Finance's infrastructure is designed to solve the capital efficiency gap in traditional markets. By enabling users to lend tokenized equities (e.g., TSLA, AAPL) and earn yield, or borrow stable assets against them as collateral, Edel replicates institutional-grade financial tools on-chain. This mirrors Aave V3's decentralized lending model but applies it to equities, creating a transparent, programmable alternative to opaque traditional stock-lending systems.

Key advantages of Edel's approach include:
1. Productive Asset Utilization: Tokenized equities are no longer static holdings but tools for generating yield or leveraging liquidity. For instance, users can lend their tokenized NVIDIA shares to earn interest or borrow USDC against them to fund other investments.
2. Scalable Infrastructure: Edel's testnet, already active, with over 1,500 users, demonstrates its readiness to scale. Partnerships with tokenized equity issuers like Ondo Finance and xStocks further solidify its ecosystem.
3. Tokenomics and Governance: The $EDEL token underpins governance, with 50% of the total supply allocated to the community. This aligns incentives for long-term growth and adoption.

Why Infrastructure Outperforms Exchange Distribution

While Coinbase's user growth is impressive, it faces inherent limitations. Exchange platforms are commoditizing in a market where infrastructure-the backbone of capital efficiency-will drive value. Edel Finance's focus on lending and borrowing directly addresses the $18 billion tokenized real-world asset (RWA) market in 2025, a sector where Coinbase has no direct involvement.

Moreover, Edel's timing aligns with Coinbase's tokenized equities launch. As the latter drives demand for tokenized stocks, the former is poised to capture the secondary infrastructure market, offering tools to optimize portfolios. This symbiotic relationship suggests that Edel's infrastructure will benefit more from Coinbase's distribution efforts than vice versa.

Conclusion: $EDEL as the Superior Bet

Investors seeking exposure to the tokenized equities narrative must distinguish between distribution and infrastructure. Coinbase's retail-centric model is essential for adoption but lacks the depth to sustain long-term value. Edel Finance, by contrast, is building the capital markets layer that will enable tokenized equities to function as true financial instruments. With a testnet already operational, partnerships with key issuers, and a tokenomics model designed for scalability, $EDEL represents a more compelling and defensible bet on the future of on-chain capital markets.

As the tokenized equities market matures, infrastructure providers like Edel Finance will likely outperform exchange platforms, cementing their role as the Aave of tokenized stocks.