How Coinbase’s Wild Earnings Stack Up Against Normie Financial Firms

The crypto exchange’s $1.8 billion in quarterly revenue trounced the $1.3 billion earned in all of 2020. Can Coinbase go up from here or will future COIN holders get rekt?

Based on earnings estimates announced Tuesday, nothing else in the financial services industry really compares to Coinbase right now.

Wedded to the rising fortunes of cryptocurrencies themselves, soon-to-list Coinbase expects to make more money in the first quarter of this year than in all of 2020, and has seen an exponential rise in engaged customers.

Coinbase’s revenue for the first three months of 2021 is expected to be $1.8 billion with earnings of about $800 million, compared with $1.3 billion in revenue and earnings of $322 million for all of 2020. Crypto is booming right now, with bitcoin holding its own not far below $60,000.

Ahead of next week’s listing of COIN stock, the obvious question is whether the current quarter is an outlier or, as some stolid crypto believers may be thinking, the new normal.

In this respect, seasoned crypto watchers will recall that Coinbase reported bumper revenue of close to $1 billion in 2017, and close to half of that was booked in December of that year when the price of bitcoin rose to then-all-time highs near $20,000.

Still, when Coinbase does list on April 14, Wall Street will have to sit up and take notice, and also begin comparing the stock to other listed brokerage and investment firms.

It’s hard to predict how long the crypto industry’s current upswing will last, but it’s fun to compare large listed trading firms with Coinbase, especially because it has been an unusual year for everyone.

In fact, 2020 was a huge year for the retail investing industry, thanks to the COVID-19 lockdown, the explosion of interest around WallStreetBets and also large plays like brokerage giant Charles Schwab’s acquisition of rival TD Ameritrade.