Brian Armstrong, co-founder and chief executive officer of Coinbase Inc., speaks during the Singapore Fintech Festival, in Singapore, on Friday, Nov. 4, 2022.
Bryan van der Beek | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Election Day proved hugely successful for the crypto industry. Nobody was a bigger winner than Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong.
Coinbase shares soared 31% on Wednesday, their best day on record, as investors celebrated the company’s victorious efforts to get pro-crypto candidates into office. Fairshake, the Coinbase-backed PAC, says that of the 58 candidates it supported, 46 won, with the remaining contests 12 still undecided.
Armstrong, who co-founded Coinbase in 2012 and took it public in 2021, remains the crypto exchange’s biggest investor, with ownership of well over 10% of the company’s outstanding shares. As of the latest proxy filing, he owned 34.8 million Class A and Class B shares, a stake that jumped by about $2.1 billion in value on Wednesday to almost $9 billion.
“Being anti-crypto is simply bad politics,” Armstrong wrote in a post on X, after Ohio Republican Bernie Moreno was declared the winner in his state’s Senate race over incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown.
In a lengthier follow-up post on Wednesday, Armstrong said “no matter how you slice it, this election was huge win for crypto.”
Bitcoin jumped over 9.5%, reaching a record of over $76,400.
A Coinbase spokesperson declined to comment further.
Some $40 million of crypto money was directed at defeating Brown, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. One PAC paid for five ads designed to boost awareness of Moreno, a blockchain entrepreneur with very little name recognition entering the race.
The Stand With Crypto Alliance, which Coinbase launched last year, gave Brown an “F” grade, while it issued Moreno an “A.”
Moreno flipped the seat, winning 50.3% of votes cast to 46.3% for Moreno, according to NBC News. His win helped ensure a majority for the Republicans in Senate, alongside Republican nominee Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential contest.
“I am so grateful to Ohioans for their resounding support in this race,” Moreno said in a statement Tuesday night. “I look forward to working with the new Republican Senate majority to fix our economy, secure our border, and return to American strength at home and abroad.”
Moreno’s statement made no mention of crypto, despite the fact that the industry bankrolled his campaign.
Politics pays off
For Armstrong, politics has become a big part of the job as his company fights for a friendlier Washington and more amenable regulatory environment.
Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler sued Coinbase last year over claims that it sells unregistered securities. A judge has since ruled that the case should be heard by a jury. Coinbase has fought back vociferously, and has also said that it wants to work with regulators to come up with a proper set of laws governing the nascent industry.
Republican nominee for U.S. Senate Bernie Moreno addresses supporters at Brecksville Community Center on November 4, 2024 in Brecksville, Ohio.
Stephen Maturen | Getty Images
Armstrong told CNBC in September that his visits to the nation’s capital used to take place once or twice a year. Then it got to be at least a quarterly occasion. And the pace has only increased.
“In the beginning, a lot of people didn’t know what crypto was,” Armstrong said of his earlier trips. Now, “the discussion has advanced, really, to, how do we pass clear rules, create legislation in the United States?”
In the 2024 election cycle, Coinbase was one of the top corporate donors, giving more than $75 million to Fairshake and its affiliate PACs, including a fresh pledge of $25 million to support the pro-crypto super PAC in the 2026 midterms. Armstrong personally contributed more than $1.3 million to a mix of candidates up and down the ballot.
Coinbase stayed out of the presidential contest and focused its finances exclusively on congressional races, in an effort to assemble a group of lawmakers with favorable views of the industry.
Coinbase’s big post-election pop more than makes up for the 15% drop in the stock last week after the company reported disappointing quarterly results due to lower transaction revenue and a drop in subscriptions services revenue.
Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s chief legal officer, attended multiple fundraisers for Trump in the months before the election. As the results were rolling in Tuesday, Grewal said in a post on X that he hopes the SEC “understands what has happened tonight.”
“Stop suing crypto,” Grewal wrote. “Start talking to crypto. Initiate rulemaking now. There’s no reason to wait.”
Armstrong reposted the Grewal’s comments, adding one word of his own: “True.”
Ticket reseller StubHub signage on display at the New York Stock Exchange for the company’s IPO on Sept. 17, 2025.
NYSE
StubHub shares plunged 20% in extended trading on Thursday after the company reported quarterly results for the first time since its initial public offering in September.
Here’s how the ticket vendor did in comparison with LSEG consensus:
Loss per share: $4.27
Revenue: $468.1 million vs. $452 million expected
During a conference call with investors, StubHub CEO and founder Eric Baker said the company wouldn’t provide guidance for the current quarter.
Baker said that the company takes “a long term approach,” adding that the timing of when tickets go on sale can vary, making it hard to predict consumer demand. StubHub plans to offer outlook for 2026 when it reports fourth-quarter results, he said.
“The demand for live events is phenomenal,” Baker said. “We don’t see anything with consumer demand that’s any different.”
Revenue increased 8% in its second quarter from $433.8 million a year earlier, the company said.
StubHub reported a net loss of $1.33 billion, or a loss of $4.27 per share, compared to a net loss of $45.9 million, or a loss of 15 cents per share, during the same period last year. StubHub said this reflects a one-time stock-based compensation charge of $1.4 billion stemming from its IPO.
Gross merchandise sales, which represent the total dollar value paid by ticket buyers, rose 11% year over year to $2.43 billion.
The company faced tough comparisons from a year earlier, when results were boosted by Taylor Swift’s massively popular Eras Tour. Excluding that impact, StubHub said GMS grew 24% year over year.
Founded in 2000, StubHub primarily generates revenue from connecting buyers with ticket resellers. It competes with Vivid Seats, which was taken public via a special purpose acquisition company in 2021; SeatGeek; and Ticketmaster parent Live Nation Entertainment.
“We are building a truly differentiated consumer product that improves the experience for fans while unlocking better economics for venues, teams, and artists through open distribution,” Baker said in a statement. “We’re early in that journey, but our progress so far gives us great confidence in our strategy and the long-term value we’re creating.”
StubHub raised $800 million in its long-awaited IPO on the New York Stock Exchange, which came after it delayed its debut twice. The most recent stall came in April after President Donald Trump‘s announcement of sweeping tariffs roiled markets. The company restarted the process to go public in August when it filed an updated prospectus.
On Thursday, the company’s stock closed at $18.82. Shares are now down roughly 20% from the IPO price of $23.50.
The Google corporate logo hangs outside the Google Germany offices on August 31, 2021 in Berlin, Germany.
Sean Gallup | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Google said on Thursday said it has disrupted the foreign cybercriminal group behind a massive SMS text phishing operation within 24 hours of filing its lawsuit.
“This shut down of Lighthouse’s operations is a win for everyone,” said Google general counsel Halimah DeLaine Prado. “We will continue to hold malicious scammers accountable and protect consumers.”
Google filed the suit early Wednesday, seeking to dismantle the organization that some cyber experts have dubbed the “Smishing Triad,” which used a phishing kit named “Lighthouse” to generate and deploy attacks using fake texts.
The company provided translated Telegram messages allegedly posted by the group’s ringleader.
“Our cloud server has been blocked due to malicious complaints. Please be patient and we will restore it as soon as possible!” one message read.
Another message stated that “The reopening date will be announced separately.”
Google did not provide specifics on how the operation was shut down.
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The crime group had harmed at least 1 million victims across over 120 countries, Google said in a release.
Victims would receive texts containing malicious links to fraudulent websites designed to steal sensitive financial information, including Social Security numbers and banking credentials.
The messages often appeared as fake delivery updates, unpaid fees notifications, fraud alerts, and other texts designed to appear urgent.
“They were preying on users’ trust in reputable brands such as E-ZPass, the U.S. Postal Service, and even us as Google,” DeLaine Prado previously told CNBC.
The company said that it found over 100 templates generated by Lighthouse using the company’s branding to trick victims into thinking the sites were legitimate.
Tesla is recalling around 10,500 units of its Powerwall 2, a backup battery for residential use, according to a U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission disclosure out Thursday.
“The lithium-ion battery cells in certain Powerwall 2 systems can cause the unit to stop functioning during normal use, which can result in overheating and, in some cases, smoke or flame and can cause death or serious injury due to fire and burn hazards,” the CPSC recall notice said.
While Elon Musk‘s electric vehicle and clean energy company blamed the issue on a “third-party battery cell defect,” it did not name the supplier.
The recall notice said Tesla previously received 22 customer reports of the Powerwall 2 overheating, including five fires resulting in “minor property damage,” but no known injuries.
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Tesla’s Powerwall products are sold via its Energy division, along with giant, backup batteries that are built for utility-scale projects and use at large business facilities.
The Powerwalls work with Tesla’s solar photovoltaics, or solar rooftops, and can store electricity in a home for use at a later time, including during blackouts or during days or hours when electricity prices are higher.
In a separate notice on Tesla’s website, the company emphasized that the issue does not affect owners of newer model Powerwall systems, specifically Powerwall 3. The company website also said, “all affected units are being replaced at no cost to customers.”
Tesla’s biggest growth engine in the third quarter of 2025 came from its energy division, which sells Powerwalls. Tesla Energy saw revenue jump 44% to $3.42 billion in the third quarter, and as of the end of September, its energy segment represented about one-quarter of Tesla’s overall revenue.
Tesla shares fell by more than 7% on Thursday. Representatives for Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.