I'm only a noob trying to learn. With that said, when Coinbase adopts B2X and gives identical amount, where does the money come from. I just don't get how they can split a blockchain and give people "free money." Do they just make up a price? Any links to articles help and any help in general is appreciated.
During every fork all bitcoin addresses that have positive bitcoin balance will get equal amount of forked coin.
What coinbase will do is they will move all user's balance to their bitcoin address (cold wallet) at the time or before the fork, during that time 24 hour before and 24 hour after the fork they will disable deposit/withdrawals of bitcoin so that they can move those bitcoin back to their hot wallet after fork.
They are getting free B2X coin after fork so they are not giving anything out of their pocket or from thin air.