Morning Minute: Coinbase Reports $667 Million Loss Amid Bitcoin Dive

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors rising since early morning, BTC at $69K
• Coinbase misses Q4 earnings, revenue down 22% YoY
• CFTC names dozens of crypto execs to its Innovation Advisory Committee
• Solana announces Graveyard Hack to resurrect dead sectors
• Aave Labs shares new proposal to send 100% of revenue to the DAO

📉 Coinbase Drops a $667M Loss

On Tuesday, Coinbase unveiled Agentic Wallets—its thesis on the future of AI x crypto.

On Wednesday, it reminded everyone just how painful the present is.

📌 What Happened

Coinbase reported Q4 2025 earnings Thursday that missed across the board.

Revenue came in at $1.78 billion, down 22% year-over-year and below the $1.84 billion analysts expected.

The net loss of $667 million was a stark reversal from the $1.3 billion profit Coinbase posted in Q4 2024, when Trump’s election sent crypto surging.

This time, the driver was a $718 million unrealized writedown on Coinbase’s crypto investment portfolio, plus $395 million in strategic investment losses, including its stake in Circle.

Transaction revenue fell to $983 million, down 6% quarter-over-quarter and 37% below 2024’s Q4 surge.

Operating expenses went the wrong way, up 9% to $1.5 billion, while stock-based compensation added another $250 million. CEO Brian Armstrong sold more than $500 million in personal shares over the past nine months. CFO Alesia Haas sold $56.5 million worth on Feb. 6.

COIN fell 7.9% to $141 before earnings, then whipsawed in after-hours, dropping to $135 before bouncing to $147.

It has since jumped early Friday, recently trading at $163 after a nearly 16% spike. Even so, COIN is down nearly 50% over the last six months.

🗣️ What They’re Saying

Anil Gupta, Coinbase VP of Investor Relations, told Decrypt the portfolio loss is unrealized: “It’s more of a buy and hold situation. We’re not selling any of the portfolio from a profit recognition standpoint.”

🧠 Why It Matters

The largest U.S. crypto exchange dropped a $667 million loss the same week it launched the product it says will power the future of agentic commerce.

But zoom out from the headline loss and the picture gets more interesting.

• Full-year trading volume hit $5.2 trillion, up 156% year-over-year.
• Global market share doubled to 6.4%.
• Stablecoin revenue reached $364 million in Q4, up 61% YoY.
• Coinbase One hit 971,000 subscribers.
• The company has 12 products generating $100 million+ in annualized revenue.
• And it’s sitting on $11.3 billion in cash.

Those are all real reasons for optimism. The Q1 outlook is sobering, though.

Subscription revenue is guided to $550-630 million, down from $727 million. Transaction revenue through Feb. 10 was only $420 million. And with Standard Chartered calling for Bitcoin falling to $50,000 before a rebound, the trading fee drought isn’t ending soon.

So where does this leave us?

Coinbase is betting on infrastructure (agentic wallets, x402, Base, stock trading, Deribit) to be the company that powers crypto’s next phase. But right now, it’s still a trading business in a market down 47% from the top.

The transition may be painful. But there is light at the end of the tunnel.

And COIN as a levered crypto bet remains a real thesis to consider—just note that levered bets work both ways.

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto prices are starting to tick up since early morning; BTC +3.5% at $69K; ETH +6% at $2,046; SOL +5.6% at $84; XRP +4.3% at $1.41
• The CFTC named dozens of crypto executives, including Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong, plus leaders from Uniswap Labs, Ripple, Kraken, and Robinhood, to its Innovation Advisory Committee
• SEC Chair Paul Atkins told the Senate Banking Committee the SEC could assert jurisdiction over prediction markets
• Standard Chartered slashed its year-end BTC target from $150K to $100K (its second cut from $300K in December), warning BTC could hit $50K and ETH $1,400 before a recovery
• Bloomberg Intelligence’s Mike McGlone predicted Tether will “flippen” both ETH and BTC by market cap
• BRICS nations are considering linking CBDCs for cross-border trade independent of the U.S. financial system
• Solana builders at Consensus Hong Kong said the chain’s future will be defined by scaling into global finance post-FTX, not returning to meme coin mania
• Fairshake’s Protect Progress PAC committed $1.5M to defeat Rep. Al Green (D-TX) in his March Democratic primary
• Anthropic announced it has raised $30B at a $380B valuation
• Spotify revealed that its best devs haven’t written any code since December, relying on their in-house AI model instead

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme majors are rebounding; DOGE +5%, SHIB +6%, PEPE +4%, TRUMP +5%, PENGU +7%, FARTCOIN +5.5%
• arc (+30%) and BigTrout (+43%) led on-chain movers on Solana

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

• Myriad President Farokh laid out the near-term focus areas for the protocol, including liquidity, UI/UX, process efficiency and media
• Solana announced the Graveyard Hack to revive seemingly “dead” sectors on its chain, with prizes spanning 10 sectors including Art, NFTs, on-chain social, DAOs, and gaming
• Aave Labs shared a new “Aave Will Win Framework” proposal to send 100% of protocol revenue to its DAO
• Record announced a $3.2M raise from the Sony Innovation Fund to build on-chain entertainment for the Sony Chain
• Party DAO announced it was acquired by Stripe
• Pump.Fun launched Github sharing for Creator Fees
• Two Israelis were arrested after reportedly using inside information related to Iran to wager on Polymarket lines

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

• NFT leaders were mostly green; Punks even at 29.9 ETH, Pudgy +3% at 4.31 ETH, BAYC +6% at 6.36 ETH; Hypurr’s -1% at 480 HYPE
• Bankr Club soared 178% to 0.94 ETH, leading top movers