Coinbase Earnings: $719M Profit Rides on $715M of Crypto Gains

Coinbase earnings showed a $718.7 million profit for the third quarter, or $2.51 a share. Wall Street had expected a loss of $0.23. But it includes $715 million of pre-tax gains on the bitcoin and Ethereum Coinbase holds as an investment, money that came from prices, not from customers.

Strip those out and the picture is much plainer. Revenue was $1.22 billion, flat with Q2 and down 35% from a year ago. So how did the business itself do?

Brian Armstrong @brian_armstrong

We got flying cars, now it's time we get a modern financial system.

Let me Coinbase-pill you for a minute. Financial services is a massive industry. All fintech companies combined capture about 4% of total global financial-services revenues, while traditional financial-services

9:06 PM · Oct 29, 2026 View on X

What Did Coinbase Earnings Show for Q3?

A flat quarter with a big paper gain on top. Here is how the main lines moved in the Coinbase Q3 results, from Coinbase’s Q3 earnings presentation:

Adjusted net income, which takes out gains and losses on crypto and other investments, came in at $77.7 million. That is a small profit after two quarters of adjusted losses. Adjusted EBITDA rose 60% to $332.9 million, the 15th positive quarter in a row, helped by lower costs after the cost cuts in May.

Trading Stayed Weak While Bitcoin Rallied

Transaction revenue slipped 1% to $590.2 million, even though bitcoin gained 43% in the quarter. Coinbase blamed crypto volatility at multi-year lows. Consumer trading revenue held near $450 million, and institutional revenue fell 8% to $92 million.

Prediction markets kept it from falling further. Coinbase says they now run at over $200 million in annualized revenue, double the $100 million it reported in Q2.

That lands close to our Coinbase earnings preview from Monday. We worked out about $600 million of transaction revenue and roughly $600 million of paper gains. Trading came in $10 million short, and the gain was $115 million bigger.

USDC Now Earns as Much as Retail Trading

Subscriptions and services rose 3% to $570.2 million, now 49% of net revenue. Stablecoin revenue, the interest Coinbase earns on USDC, grew 5% to $307 million. That is about two-thirds of what consumer trading brought in.

The driver is balance growth. Average USDC held in Coinbase products hit a record $22 billion, even as average USDC in circulation dipped to $73 billion from $77 billion in Q2.

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What Coinbase Said About October

October started better than July did. Transaction revenue was about $165 million through October 25, against about $130 million over the first 26 days of Q3. Coinbase again warned against extrapolating it.

For Q4 it guides subscriptions and services to $550 million to $630 million, roughly flat at the midpoint, helped by higher rates. Coinbase also says it has bought back 10.2 million shares, more than $2 billion, with $2 billion of authorization left.

How Did COIN Stock React?

Calmly at first, then lower with bitcoin. COIN stock closed at $160.59 on Thursday, down 1.1%, and traded around that level in the first half hour after the release.

Then bitcoin slid from about $80,700 to below $78,000 as news of the Binance hack spread, and COIN followed it down. It ended after-hours trading at $152.98, down 4.7%.

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Bitcoin trades near $78,100 at the time of writing. The headline profit will look great on screens today, but the crew reads the $78 million instead. The trading business didn’t grow in a 43% bitcoin rally, and the October numbers are the first sign that it might.

Written by

VikingXBT

On the climb since 2017. Trades futures and reads onchain data. Automates the boring parts.

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