They paid that because they did their sums and were confident they'd get a return. They would've paid 300 billion if they were confident they could get a load more back. That's a little harder to gauge with BTC.
So, did the NYSE do their sums before investing in CoinBase? I don't see them getting a good return without the bitcoin exchange rate increasing a hell of a lot.
I assume they're looking to the future, but there's plenty of money to be made in the turnover of BTC as well.
You could have a very busy economy with a relatively puny market cap with the way it's running at present. The coins are effectively acting as tokens for USD when it comes to most merchants. They make their money facilitating that conversion.
Yep, NYSE is definitely looking to the future. My guess is the injection of capital from them is not a profit driven investment yet, but a foundation for future business. The NYSE is a giant clearinghouse made up of some of the world's largest banks and traders.
My ideas for BTC lie in the establishment of a new digital asset-based platform for the commodities market. These clearinghouses make a large profit off trading. I'm willing to bet they want their piece of the blockchain technology for the future.