Coinbase Narrows Losses in Q2 despite Declining Trading Volumes

Friday, 04/08/2023 | 10:57 GMT by Jared Kirui

The exchange's quarterly revenue declined 17% year-over-year.

Several asset managers have selected Coinbase to provide the infrastructure for spot Bitcoin ETFs.

The US-based cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase reduced its net loss to USD $97 million in the second quarter from USD $1.1 billion in the same period of last year. However, the company's net revenue declined 17% year-over-year to USD $663 million during the period.

Coinbase has attributed the improved performance to a reduction in expenses that resulted from the company operating more efficiently. The company's operating expenses declined 1% quarter-over-quarter to USD $664 million. Additionally, the exchange reduced its staff by 30% year-over-year.

Improving EBITDA

Besides that, Coinbase posted an adjusted EBITDA of USD $194 million, which is an improvement from the negative EBITDA of USD $151 million reported in the second quarter of 2022. However, the EBITDA reported in the period declined 31% quarter-over-quarter from USD $284 million.

Coinbase's total revenue from subscriptions and services more than doubled year-over-year to USD $335 million in the second quarter. The revenue from the consumer segment was USD $310 million, which compares to USD $17 million from the institutional segment.

Following the results, Coinbase is projecting its subscriptions and services revenue to be at least USD $300 million in the third quarter. Additionally, the company expects its technology and development, general, and administrative expenses to range between USD $575-625 million in the next quarter.

Coinbase's Future Prospects

"In Q2, we made further progress toward this bold goal such as expanded access to derivatives products to customers outside the US, being selected by many leading asset managers to provide critical infrastructure underpinning their proposed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) products," the exchange stated.

Finance Magnates reported last month that the American derivatives and securities exchange network, Cboe Global Markets, had entered into a Surveillance Sharing Agreement (SSA) with Coinbase for spot Bitcoin ETFs filed on behalf of its asset managers, Fidelity, VanEck, WisdomTree, and Invesco.

On top of that, Coinbase highlighted the regulatory challenges it faces in the US related to the lawsuit filed by the regulator, in the report. Coinbase is planning to file a motion seeking the dismissal of the case, which accuses it of operating an unregistered trading platform and offering unregistered securities.