- Coinbase paid Cobie 2,500,000 USDC for the UpOnly NFT.
- The agreement will bring eight new episodes of the UpOnly podcast back to production.
- Cobie joked that he would return, calling the sale “too ridiculous, impossible.”
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has confirmed the purchase of the “UpOnly” NFT from prominent trader and podcaster Jordan “Cobie” Fish for 2,500,000 USDC.
The acquisition marks a notable move by Coinbase into NFT-driven media and lays the groundwork for the long-awaited revival of the UpOnly podcast after a three-year hiatus.
Armstrong announced the purchase on X, writing that “the rumors are true, we bought the NFT. UpOnlyTV is coming back.”
The on-chain record of the transaction shows that Coinbase transferred the agreed USDC amount to Cobie to acquire the token — a sum that surprised many in the crypto community given the NFT’s partly jokey origin.
A $2.5 Million NFT
The UpOnly NFT was never intended to be a conventional sale item. When Cobie minted it in May 2025, he treated it as a humorous challenge, declaring that the podcast would return only if someone purchased and burned the NFT.
“Power now sits with this NFT,” Cobie wrote at the time. “When it is burned, the podcast will restart.”
To discourage any realistic purchase, Cobie set an absurdly high price, adding zeros until the token seemed effectively unbuyable — more of a gag than a commercial offer.
However, Coinbase not only bought the NFT but reportedly paid more than its listed price.
In doing so, the exchange unintentionally triggered the “burn-to-revive” condition, obliging Cobie and his co-host Ledger to return to the microphones and produce eight new episodes of UpOnlyTV.
From Joke to $2.5 Million Reality
The NFT’s description, written in Cobie’s trademark humor, granted its owner the right to “force Cobie and Ledger Status to perform eight episodes of UpOnlyTV like trained monkeys.”
It even allowed them to “call the buyer an idiot” or to ignore the hosts during production if they chose.
What began as a parody of NFT culture has become a high-value contract tied to one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges.
For Coinbase, the deal is not merely a purchase of a meme. The company views the acquisition as part of its expanding content and media strategy — an effort to engage audiences beyond trading and financial services.
By tying the revival of a beloved podcast to blockchain-based ownership, Coinbase is testing how NFTs can connect digital ownership, creator incentives, and entertainment.
The Rise, Fall, and Return of UpOnly
UpOnly launched during the 2021 bull market, hosted by Cobie and Ledger. The podcast became a staple of crypto culture for its candid conversations with traders, fund managers, and founders.
Guests provided sharp insights and irreverent humor about market trends, helping the show stand out in an increasingly noisy media landscape.
However, after the collapse of FTX and a broader crypto downturn, the podcast went silent in 2022.
Fans wondered for three years whether UpOnly would ever return. Cobie repeatedly declined to bring it back — until the playful NFT concept changed everything.
With Coinbase’s acquisition, the podcast’s comeback is now official.
Under the NFT’s terms, Cobie and Ledger are scheduled to produce a season of eight episodes beginning October 21, 2025 — nearly three years after the show went off the air.
True to Cobie’s style, he responded to the unexpected windfall with dry humor. “UpOnly has been gone three years,” he wrote on X. “When it started I was in my twenties, now I have grey hair.” He joked about renaming the show “Unc Only” and spending the NFT proceeds on cosmetic surgery before the first episode.
Behind the jokes, however, this deal stands as one of the more unusual media transactions in crypto history — a meme transformed into a multi-million-dollar media contract.