What you see that occurred with Coinbase was the first time that BTC experienced TOP down market flow, up to now it has all been about grassroots organizations and building a system up, well this time the big guys got together decided to adopt a favorite son of the CC world (coinbase) and give it their blessings. The problem is they came far too late in the game, they came right on time to save Coinbase but not earlier enough to save the industry in the short term (1 year). If they did this a year ago, when gox died, it would have saved the industry in the short term.
I've read a couple threads about coinbase and I'd like to clear up a couple reasonable misconceptions:
Coinbase and coinbase exchange are two different things, I don't know how the two are legally related as of yet but they are treating them as two separate entities.
Coinbase is not an exchange, however 'coinbase exchange' is an exchange, they use essentially the same name in order to build on the branding.
One of the things I've been advocating for a year now is the need for INSURANCE, to my pleasant surprise the exchange has some insurance. And the coverage appears to guard against some of the things that occurred with Mt Gox and Moolah/mintpal -- internal thief. Thereby raising the quality bar for the industry.
The more secure we make BTC (and the whole CC industry) the higher the value will go. SAFETY AND SECURITY are the ONLY things keeping BTC value down.
On a totally separate note:
http://www.crowdfundingpr.org/10-cryptocurrency-communities-unite-form-powerful-crowdfunding-platform/