Investors in cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase are waking up to some welcome news. As of the time of the writing, shares of Coinbase (ticker: COIN) are up over 12% to above $186 per share. That’s a price COIN shares haven’t seen since March 2022.
Shares rose on the reporting of Coinbase’s Q4 2023 financial results, which were announced yesterday after the bell. The main headline from Coinbase’s Q4 was that the company reported its first profit in two years. The company generated $905 million in net revenue for the quarter and $273 million in net income. To put that net income figure into perspective, Coinbase reported a loss of $557 million during the quarter a year earlier.
So what’s driving Coinbase’s Q4 2023 turnaround? The company and its investors can thank the Bitcoin spot ETFs that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved in January.
“In Q4, we saw a sharp increase in crypto asset volatility—which resembled Q1’23 levels—and crypto asset prices,” the company’s letter to shareholders explains. “We believe the increases were driven by a variety of factors, principally excitement around Bitcoin spot ETF approvals and broad expectations around improving macroeconomic conditions in 2024, which contributed broadly in the capital markets to ‘risk on’ activity. The Q/Q increase in both of these macro factors positively impacted our Q4 transaction revenue.”
Bitcoin spot ETFs allow, for the first time, investors to invest in Bitcoin’s value without having to directly buy the digital cryptocurrency. ETFs are traded on regulated markets.
Of course, while today’s premarket surge in COIN shares will be welcome news to Coinbase investors, the company has a long way to go to reclaim its all-time high share value, which topped out at around $429 after COIN stock began trading for the first time in April 2021.
Coinbase’s earnings come amid a broader rally for Bitcoin, which is up more than 8% in the last five days and recently topped $50,000.
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