What happened Shares of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global (NASDAQ: COIN) hit an all-time high at more than $400 per share the first day the company was public. The stock fell shortly thereafter and hasn't done much since. However, shares are up roughly 10% over the past week and 3.6% higher today as of 10:45 a.m. EDT, as it's becoming more apparent that trading volume for cryptocurrencies is holding strong. So what As my Motley Fool colleague Rick Munarriz so eloquently said, "Coinbase is a bet on crypto trading -- and not necessarily its ascent." In other words, Coinbase generates most of its highly profitable revenue from trading volume. It doesn't necessarily matter if the prices of cryptocurrencies go up or down as long as its 68 million verified users are buying and selling. Image source: Getty Images. Coinbase's second-quarter trading volume reached an all-time high, and it's unlikely to be topped in the third quarter. However, there's growing evidence that trading volume isn't dropping off as much as investors previously feared, which is good for Coinbase. Moreover, the company continues to add support for trading more and more altcoins, and it even announced that it's launching a marketplace for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) this year. The NFT waiting list has already signed up over 1 million people in just a couple of days. By constantly adding more things to trade, Coinbase is increasing its chances of maintaining strong trading volume in the quarters to come. Now what Coinbase is expected to report third-quarter financial metrics within the next few weeks. The only insight management gave was that July trading volume fell from the second quarter. And while August was rebounding compared to July, it was still lower than second-quarter volume as well. Because of this, management believes trading volume will be down for the quarter. Additionally, because there's a cost to adding altcoins and NFTs to the Coinbase platform, it's possible that expenses will be relatively higher for the quarter. 10 stocks we like better than Coinbase Global, Inc.When our award-winning analyst team has a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.* They just revealed what they believe are the ten best stocks for investors to buy right now... and Coinbase Global, Inc. wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys. See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of September 17, 2021 Jon Quast has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.Source