NEW YORK, May 8, 2026, 06:09 (EDT)
- Coinbase swung to a net loss of $394.1 million in the first quarter, wiping out its profit from a year ago, after total revenue dropped 31% to $1.413 billion.
- Coinbase posted results just as crypto trading cooled off, squeezing its key transaction-fee revenue and sparking new doubts about how things might shake out in the second quarter.
- Coinbase trading services were knocked offline overnight after an Amazon Web Services outage; the exchange said all markets were back up shortly after.
Coinbase Global Inc. swung to another quarterly loss, its second in a row, as softer crypto markets battered trading revenue and shrinking crypto asset values weighed on results. The exchange posted a net loss of $394.1 million for the first quarter, or $1.49 per share—down from a $65.6 million profit in the same period last year. Friday’s U.S. market open looms with pressure on the company.
The timing’s crucial: Coinbase is still the go-to gauge for risk appetite in digital assets. If traders—retail or institutional—pull back, the hit shows up almost instantly in transaction fee revenue, even as Coinbase leans harder into stablecoins, derivatives, and other tools to buffer the cycle. According to Reuters, digital-asset exchange volumes sagged early in 2026 as crypto prices slipped, financial conditions tightened, and macro jitters made investors cautious.
This wasn’t just about a rough earnings report. Coinbase revealed plans earlier in the week to slash around 700 jobs, amounting to 14% of staff. Then, overnight, an AWS-linked service outage hit its platform. For a company rooted in nonstop markets, the combo—a disappointing quarter and platform downtime—doesn’t inspire confidence, even with trading back online.
Shares of Coinbase slipped roughly 5% in after-hours action following its earnings, according to Reuters. The stock showed up at $192.96 in early premarket figures Friday, off $5.09 from Thursday’s close.
Total revenue dropped to $1.413 billion, down from $2.034 billion the previous year. Transaction revenue landed at $756 million; subscription and services revenue reached $584 million. Adjusted EBITDA was $303 million — that’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, excluding certain items.
Alesia Haas, the chief financial officer, called this quarter’s market environment “softer.” CEO Brian Armstrong, for his part, said Coinbase “executed well on what was in our control in Q1.” Derivatives, stablecoins, and prediction markets saw growth, the company noted. Still, those areas weren’t enough to offset the sharp swing in earnings. Coinbase Investor Relations
Subscription and services brought in 44% of Coinbase’s net revenue—a cushion, but trading still matters. Stablecoin revenue hit $305 million, lifted by USDC, the dollar-linked token. The company reported average USDC balances in Coinbase products climbed to $19 billion.
The exchange pointed to its newer offerings, noting crypto trading volume market share jumped to 8.6%. Derivatives trading volume shot up 169% from a year earlier. And in March, prediction markets brought in over $100 million in annualized revenue, based on that month’s sales.
Cost cutting is back in focus. In a securities filing dated May 5, Coinbase described its latest restructuring as a move to keep expenses in line with the current market backdrop and to “optimize” for the AI era. The company is looking at $50 million to $60 million in restructuring costs—primarily tied to severance and termination packages. Coinbase aims to wrap up most of the plan in the second quarter. SEC
Clear Street’s Owen Lau described the layoffs as “supportive of forward profitability,” Reuters reported. Daniel T. Fannon at Jefferies pointed to a slowdown in April trading volumes on digital-asset exchanges, a trend that’s left the second quarter off to a weaker start. Reuters
Coinbase isn’t the only one feeling the pinch. Robinhood Markets fell short on both revenue and profit last month, Reuters reported, after trading volumes cooled off; the platform handles crypto trading too. Elsewhere, CME Group—while not a crypto exchange, but a heavyweight in derivatives—ran into login and latency problems during the AWS outage. CME didn’t directly blame AWS for the disruptions.
The risks here aren’t exactly hidden. In its own presentation, Coinbase pointed to crypto price swings, rivals, regulatory questions, shifting rates, and broader market pressures as threats to its performance. Transaction revenue for the second quarter hit just around $215 million through May 5. Should trading remain sluggish, neither income from stablecoins nor staff reductions are likely to offset the drag if another weak quarter follows.
