In brief
- Galaxy’s investment portfolio value fell $449 million in Q4.
- The company highlighted a stable value for its loan book.
- Galaxy shares hit their lowest price since July following the news.
Galaxy Digital shares fell on Tuesday after the institutional crypto firm reported a fourth-quarter loss of $482 million, stemming from a 22% decrease in the value of its investment portfolio.
The company, which listed its shares on the Nasdaq in May, saw the value of its digital assets and investments decline $449 million in the quarter ended Dec. 31, according to a press release. Although the value of Galaxy’s portfolio fell to $1.7 billion, it still held $2.6 billion in cash and stablecoins.
At the end of the fourth quarter, Galaxy held $557 million in Bitcoin, $124 million in Ethereum, and $220 million in other altcoins. At the same time, it managed $617 million worth of venture and fund investments, while reporting $141 million in “other liquid investments.”
The company posted an earnings before taxes and interest loss of $557 million, exceeding the $278 million penciled in by analysts on Wall Street.
Galaxy shares are down about 16% on the day following the news, according to Yahoo Finance, recently trading at $22.13. That's the lowest price seen for GLXY since July. Shares hit an all-time high mark of $45.92 in October.
Galaxy is known for bridging institutional finance with the crypto ecosystem through trading, asset management, and investment banking, but it also competes with the likes of Coinbase and Robinhood through its GalaxyOne platform, which was rolled out late last year.
Still, trading volumes fell 62% quarter-over-quarter to $10.6 billion. Galaxy noted that the decrease comes after the firm facilitated a $9 billion Bitcoin sale in the third quarter.
Among the top three largest centralized lenders in crypto, Galaxy disclosed that the value of its loan book remained little changed quarter-over-quarter at $1.8 billion. Galaxy said the performance reflects “resilience and sustained client demand, despite lower digital asset prices.”
Bitcoin and Ethereum respectively fell 23% and 28% in the fourth quarter, according to CoinGlass, and the value of assets on Galaxy’s platform dropped 26% to $11.4 billion.
Galaxy reported $6.4 billion in assets under management, a 27% decrease from $8.8 billion in the third quarter. Over the same period of time, the value of digital assets staked through Galaxy’s platform fell 24% quarter-over-quarter to $5 billion.
Analysts at investment bank Compass Point noted that the first phase of Galaxy’s Helios data center remains on schedule to be completed in the first half of this year. Under an agreement with AI cloud provider CoreWeave, the company expects to deliver 133MW of critical IT load.
With a target price target of $46 per Galaxy share, the analysts suggested negotiations with hyperscalers could be a short-term catalyst, if any are revealed soon. They noted that Galaxy’s Helios facility has approved 830MW of capacity.
“The data center business remains the key driver of GLXY's investment thesis,” they wrote. "Amid concerns of project delays among peers, GLXY remains on track to deliver its first data hall in 1Q26.”