When Coinbase published its second-quarter earnings on Thursday, the results were ho-hum at best: a narrow miss on revenue and a decline in trading volume, which led the company’s stock—which has been on a tear in recent months—to drop by around 15%. The market’s focus on typical earnings metrics, though, mean the news coverage largely overlooked three very significant one-off numbers that matter a lot to Coinbase’s short- and long-term future.
The first of those numbers is $1.5 billion. That figure reflects what Coinbase described as “pretax gains on strategic investments—which included an unrealized gain on our investment in Circle.” Translation: Coinbase hit the jackpot when Circle, its partner on the fast-growing USDC stablecoin, went public in early June and saw the value of its shares soar soon after.
