What a strange week it's been. I began working on this article several days ago, thinking by the time my Friday deadline hit everything would be cleared up and I could end this with some conclusions on what they're doing over at Coinbase.But instead, this week ends with me more confused than I began - so instead, i'll give you a run down on all of it - you can make your own guesses and draw your own conclusions.So first there was a major announcement - that the SEC and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has given Coinbase the thumbs up for trading cryptocurrencies that meet the legal qualifications of a security.But now, they're taking it all back, tellingThen today, Coinbase has apparently gained a hedge fund with over $20 Billion in assets into their Coinbase Prime service - except no one is saying which it is. According tociting leaks from anonymous sources who told them:What's clear is this - there's an aggressive battle going on behind the scenes right now to be the first cryptocurrency outlet with blessings from the US Government to offer full brokerage services which many believe will end in the cryptocurrency markets seeing trillions of dollars flooding into it.Over the past few months we've seen cryptocurrency companies recruiting people from Wall Street, and Wall Street companies recruiting people from the cryptocurrency world - all in preparation for the day this happens.The traditional finance world demands this combination of services before they're willing to invest large sums: Government approval for their market trading actions, and the full array of services they're used to on Wall Street (custody, financing, lending, shorting)Currently, the companies racing to be the first to do it are Coinbase, Circle, and Robinhood. From what we know it at least appears currently CoinBase has taken the lead.