The figure represented a 22% decrease compared to a year ago, while fourth-quarter revenue also fell short of analysts’ expectations of $1.84 billion.
Coinbase posted a net loss of $667 million for Q4, marking a reversal from a year ago, when the firm notched $1.3 billion in profits alongside President Donald Trump’s re-election.
Coinbase said the loss stemmed from a $718 million decrease in the value of its investment portfolio, which was largely unrealized. At the same time, strategic investments, including in Circle, lost $395 million in value.
The company said that it earned $983 million from facilitating customers’ transactions. That marked a quarter-over-quarter decrease from $1 billion in Q3. Amid Trump’s White House win, transaction revenue surged to $1.56 billion in Q4 2024.
In after-hours trading, the company’s stock swung wildly, recently showing a slight uptick to just above $142.
Despite Coinbase’s efforts to diversify its business in recent years, the firm’s latest performance showed how the San Francisco-based exchange is still exposed to a fast-changing crypto market through its reliance on charging customers trading fees.
The metric falls under the exchange’s subscriptions and services umbrella, along with staking. In its fourth quarter, Coinbase said that so-called blockchain rewards, which come from users participating in the process of validating transactions, came in at $151 million.
There were hints that Coinbase could be bracing for a disappointing quarter, with Argus Research analyst Kevin Heale telling Decrypt earlier this week that he’d never seen a company ask analysts to submit questions in advance of an earnings announcement.
