CB

CB is the informal shorthand traders use in chats, forums, and social media for Coinbase, one of the largest and most widely used cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. The nickname is purely community slang: it never appears in Coinbase's own branding or official documentation, and it should not be confused with COIN, the ticker symbol under which Coinbase Global, Inc. trades on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

Founded in 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam, Coinbase began as a simple way to buy and sell Bitcoin and has since grown into a full-service platform offering spot trading, custody, staking, a self-custody wallet app, and an institutional-grade prime brokerage arm. In April 2021 it became the first major crypto exchange to go public via a direct Nasdaq listing, a milestone widely seen as a turning point for mainstream acceptance of digital assets. Today Coinbase operates in more than 100 countries and holds a substantial share of the world's circulating bitcoin and staked ether in custody on behalf of its users.

When traders write "bought on CB" or "CB listing," they usually mean an action tied to the Coinbase exchange itself, such as a new token going live, a price move specific to Coinbase's own order book, or a deposit and withdrawal on the platform. Because Coinbase is a regulated, U.S.-based company, a Coinbase listing is often read by the market as a signal of legitimacy for a token, and it can trigger a short-term price rally that traders informally call the "Coinbase effect."