By Tyler Warner
6 min read
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:
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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