In keeping with the grand theory that cryptocoins allow the rediscovery of financial regulations and procedures from first principles, the following could happen:
* Coinbase uses the funding to get to the point where they can release a "dual currency" set of stock. One set of stock based on being traditional shares purchased with USD, one set based on being a tied to a "share token" purchased with whatever people choose to exchange (but initially sold by Coinbase for bitcoin). Presumably they would have voting rights per share tied to the conversion between bitcoin to usd.
* The normal shares are regulated in the boring SEC way.
* The share tokens are regulated according to wild west tech rules. Tokens are stolen, token private keys are lost, exchanges rediscover circuit breakers on facilitating token trades, etc.
I think there is also a second story if Coinbase were to release share tokens: Many scamcoins are essentially a way to buy shares in some service that does not fully exist yet, but has great upside potential. If this super simplistic description sounds like investing in stocks, then watching Coinbase share tokens toe the line between "scam coin" and "real deal Wall St. asset" will be an interesting experience.
