New York, Jan 21, 2026, 18:56 EST — After-hours
- Coinbase flagged a third-party problem that might be behind missing or incorrect balances and inaccurate price quotes for assets on Base
- Coinbase shares closed down 0.4% and saw minimal movement in after-hours trading
- Investors await a complete fix and any potential fallout before earnings on Feb. 12
Coinbase Global reported on Wednesday that a third-party problem might be leading some users to experience incorrect or missing balances, as well as wrong price quotes for assets on Base, its blockchain network. The company assured that customer funds remain secure. Shares of Coinbase (COIN.O) ended the day down 0.35% at $226.93 and barely moved in after-hours trading. 1
The glitch hits Coinbase at a tricky moment. Base, an “Ethereum Layer 2” network, acts as an add-on to speed up and cut costs on transactions compared to Ethereum’s mainnet. Coinbase has been pushing onchain activity more aggressively to diversify its revenue beyond just spot crypto trading. 2
Platform reliability matters deeply to equity investors. When users spot incorrect balances and hesitate to move funds or trade, activity can evaporate fast — and for crypto firms, flows and trust remain lifelines.
Coinbase reported the Base issue at 2:13 p.m. Pacific time. It later confirmed the problem had been pinpointed and a fix was underway. The company did not disclose the third party involved. 1
The Base warning came after a few brief service hiccups this week. On Tuesday, Coinbase acknowledged delays affecting some users sending transactions on the DeSo network. Earlier the same day, it flagged issues on the Ronin network. Both problems were eventually resolved. 3
Crypto prices showed a mixed picture late Wednesday. Bitcoin hovered near $90,000, while ether stayed close to $3,000. The mood kept crypto-linked stocks on edge, ready to react to any shift in sentiment. 4
Coinbase is pushing to show investors it’s not just riding bitcoin’s short-term swings but also tapping into bigger trends like tokenization — the effort to put real-world assets on blockchains. On Wednesday, asset manager F/m Investments filed for U.S. approval to tokenize shares of its Treasury bill ETF, a move Reuters highlighted has caught the eye of companies like Coinbase and Nasdaq. 5
Separately, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong took the World Economic Forum in Davos as a platform to push for U.S. crypto market-structure legislation and advocate for tokenization. In a video, he said, “We’re going to continue to work on the market structure legislation,” emphasizing the need for a “win-win” with banks. 6
Yet issues around balances and price quotes threaten that narrative. If these glitches persist or recur, they risk sparking customer complaints, raising red flags over operations, and making it harder to onboard more regulated, traditional assets onto crypto platforms.
In the upcoming session, traders will be looking for Coinbase to announce Base as fully stable and provide more insight into what went wrong. The next major event is Coinbase’s Q4 and full-year 2025 earnings, scheduled after market close on Feb. 12. 7
