Coinbase Making Headlines For All The Wrong Reasons

Two weeks after cutting 18% of its workforce, Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) is back in the news. Twelve days earlier, they’d emailed new hires one of the cruelest HR mass emails I’d ever seen: “Just kidding! Our hiring freeze affects your offer!” (The “Chief People Officer” promised severance.)

Again, Coinbase is in the wrong limelight.

Even after the job layoffs, “we believe Coinbase will need to make substantial reductions in its cost base in order to stem the resulting cash burn as retail trading activity dries up,” said Will Nance, VP and head analyst for Payments and Digital Assets at Goldman Sachs. It’s a bit rich to switch from “Neutral” to “Sell” when the stock plunged -75% in three months. If you weren’t committed to COIN long-term, the Super Bowl was a good moment to sell.

The financial outlook for Coinbase

Q1 was rough for crypto-trading platforms like Coinbase. Assets on Platform rose 15% year-over-year, while Verified Users rose 81%. These customers provided half the average transaction revenue they had in 2021. Coinbase’s revenues plummeted -27% and EBITDA fell -98% year-over-year. Comparing 2022 numbers is even harder. Coinbase grew from $1.1 billion in 2020 to $7.3 billion in 2021. Goldman expects $2.9 billion in 2022, a 60% reduction.

Moody’s also weighed in. Moody’s lowered Coinbase’s debt rating from “Ba2” to “Ba3” for similar reasons as Goldman. Both are “junk bonds” or “non-investment-grade”. Interactive Brokers (NASDAQ:IBKR) is rated A- by S&P Global as of June 16. Interactive Brokers’ Q1 revenue fell 27%. Its EBITDA fell -37% year-over-year, less than Coinbase. Interactive Brokers “has navigated the ‘zero commission’ trend,” S&P comments:

“Unlike its competitors, IBG offers customers both its traditional low-commission pricing option and a zero-commission option that includes revenue-increasing measures (such as higher rates on margin loans) to offset the reduction in commissions.”

Coinbase charges 4%. IBKR, a “blue-chip, diversified, long-standing broker with high-quality clientele,” trades at a greater valuation even in current down market, Seeking Alpha says. Interactive Brokers’ revenue is expected to climb 12% this year, not decline 60%.

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Coinbase is experimenting
If users aren’t interested in typical trades… Derivatives? They’re popular:

Carnegie Mellon University found in 2021 that crypto derivatives have five times the “spot” market’s volume. Over $100 billion in derivatives are exchanged daily, rivaling the New York Stock Exchange. This month, Coinbase releases “Nano Bitcoin Futures.” Since January, Coinbase has worked on derivatives. At 1/100th of a Bitcoin, Coinbase’s Nano Bitcoin Futures contract “needs less initial money than standard futures products”

Bitcoin “perpetual futures” at FTX (FTT-USD) cost $20,000 Coinbase’s trading volume has been stable in the bear market compared to the 2021 bull. Coinbase will close Coinbase Pro to reduce fees. If you switched between Pro and normal, you paid less. (How clever!) Advance Trade will replace Pro in the main Coinbase app, CoinMarketCap says, with the same volume-based fees.

The Goldman analyst who just downgraded COIN doesn’t like the “fee reduction” this could produce. Coinbase already struggles to maintain positive EBITDA, even with 81% more users in Q1 year-over-year.

Coinbase has a greater issue

Inflation is one opponent trading platforms can’t do much to battle. Retailers may need to lower prices to attract customers. Home prices remain high. And rental prices soar! A published report on Monday stated that 58% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck as inflation spiked, including 30% of those earning $250,000 or more. How many Americans will trade their wages on a crypto app?

Coinbase is considered more institutional than Binance (BNB-USD). Most Platform Assets and Trading Volume are institutional. In Q1, 95% of Coinbase’s Transaction Revenue came from the Retail division. 87 percent of its revenue came from transactions. (Coinbase’s Advance Trade feature could mean retail traders pay less than big traders.) (Hope they like Nano Bitcoin Futures.)

Inflation will be reduced soon. Some analyst don’t foresee red-hot inflation or stagflation. They predict BTC will settle around $20,000 in six months. Coinbase and investors must wait for relief.

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