Goldman Sachs Gives COIN Buy Rating Despite Q3 Earnings Miss

Analysts from Goldman Sachs and Morningstar stay bullish on COIN even though the company reported lower-than-expected third quarter earnings.

article-image

Blockworks exclusive art by Axel Rangel

share

key takeaways

  • Coinbase’s total net revenue dropped 39.3% in the third quarter
  • Goldman Sachs maintains a positive outlook for the exchange despite the reported revenue decline

Goldman Sachs maintains its buy rating for Coinbase despite the cryptocurrency exchange’s weaker-than-expected third quarter earnings report. Coinbase’s total net revenue dropped 39.3% from $2.033 billion to $1.234 billion during the third quarter, according to Tuesday’s earnings report.

“We think there’s an abundance of innovation in this space, and we want to double down on those opportunities,” Emilie Choi, president and chief operating officer of Coinbase, said during the company’s earnings call Tuesday. Some of those opportunities reside within non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and Web3, Choi mentioned.

The company entered Q3 with “softer crypto market conditions, driven by low volatility and declining crypto asset prices,” Coinbase said. However, market conditions improved toward the end of Q3 and have continued into Q4, the report noted.

Goldman Sachs analysts point to Conbase’s new initiatives as a reason to be optimistic about the stock. 

“While shares will likely give back some of their recent strength heading into the quarter, we see a number of reasons to be positive,” Goldman analysts wrote in a Coinbase report released Thursday. 

Coinbase’s growing subscription services and the upcoming NFT platform are going to advance the company in upcoming quarters, the report noted. 

“While COIN remains a difficult to predict financial model with broader adoption trends and the development of the crypto ecosystem driving shares on a day-to-day basis, we continue to believe COIN represents one of the best ways to get exposure to the expansion of the crypto ecosystem, and we remain constructive on COIN’s ability to continue to innovate and drive further adoption of crypto assets,” the report said. 

Morningstar analysts took a similar view Wednesday. 

“We are raising our fair value estimate for Coinbase to $225 from $201,” Morningstar analysts wrote in a mid-week Coinbase report. “Our fair value estimate benefited from a $20 adjustment for higher near-term transaction fee revenue as cryptocurrency markets set new highs, and a $15 increase from higher projected revenue from Coinbase’s staking and new NFT businesses.” 

COIN shares fell following the release of the earnings report Tuesday before paring losses. The stock was trading flat after the first hour, despite nearly 3% losses for top cryptocurrencies BTC and ETH, and sharper selloffs among smaller cap names.


Get the day’s top crypto news and insights delivered to your inbox every evening. Subscribe to Blockworks’ free newsletter now.


Tags

Upcoming Events

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Research

article-image

However, they noted there’s now an increased risk that unemployment and inflation will rise in the coming months. 

article-image

The network’s most ambitious upgrade since the Merge brings validator streamlining, smart account UX and doubled blobspace to Ethereum

article-image

Debate over extra Bitcoin use cases has returned, two years on from Ordinals

article-image

Altcoin season may be on a permanent pause as the market matures and paths grow more selective

article-image

Today’s blockchains are more like nervous systems without a brain — wiring without will

article-image

A number of blockchains make use of the Solana Virtual Machine