My largest concern about Coinbase was if they would be able to build a moat fast enough. I thought there would be dozens of competitors. Perhaps looking back it was harder to build and scale than it first appeared? Existing financial institutions who could have pulled it off were too slow to see crypto's potential.
Fair enough. Though, I think that Coinbase's current leading position in the crypto exchange sector is not much due to any moat (especially, the technology moat), but rather due to clear early focus on strict adherence to KYC/AML regulations as well as due to the first mover advantage, which sometimes seems to work.
