Coinbase, a US-based publicly traded cryptocurrency exchange, released its business results for the last quarter of 2021 on Thursday. During last year’s final quarter, Coinbase reached several significant milestones and managed to beat the analyst estimates by a considerable margin. However, the company expects the growth to stall in Q1 2022.
Key takeaways:
- Shares of Coinbase (COIN) soared by as much as 9% when the earnings report was released on Thursday but have since dropped back close to the all-time low. At current market rates of $176 per share, Coinbase boasts a market capitalization of $46.1 billion.
- During Q4 2021, Coinbase recorded a record-breaking quarterly revenue of $2.49 billion and a net profit of $840 million. CNBC reported that the analyst consensus prior to the earnings call was $1.94 billion.
- Coinbase generated $3.32 earnings per share (EPS) during the final quarter of last year, beating analysts’ estimates of $1.85 EPS by nearly 80%.
- Coinbase’s customer base grew to 11.4 million monthly transacting users (MTUs) during Q4, beating the company’s year-adjusted MTUs figure of 8.4 million by over 33%.
- Out of the total $1.665 trillion in trading volume that the exchange facilitated in Q4 2021, Bitcoin accounted for the biggest share with 24%, closely followed by Ethereum with 21%.
- The company expanded its catalog of supported digital assets by adding 95 new crypto assets to its impressive offering. The company now supports more than 150 digital assets, a stark contrast to its earlier years, when Coinbase was reluctant to list anything but the largest crypto assets.
- According to the writings in the Shareholder Letter, Coinbase expects 2022 to start on a more subtle note than 2021 ended. The slowdown in Q1 2022 will likely result from a shrinking cryptocurrency market cap and a less volatile trading environment.
- Coinbase went public in mid-April of last year, right at the time when Bitcoin reached its then all-time high of $64,800. The company debuted on Nasdaq with a market cap of $85.8 billion. Both Bitcoin and Coinbase have since lost a considerable chunk of their value. Bitcoin is currently trading roughly 40% removed from its last April’s high, while Coinbase shares are down approximately 45% in the same time span.
