Benchmark joins others in reiterating Buy rating on Coinbase stock despite lackluster Q1 earnings

Despite a rather lackluster first-quarter earnings report, Benchmark equities analysts have reiterated their Buy rating for Coinbase’s stock, raising their price target to $270 from $260, in a research report on Tuesday.

Coinbase (COIN) is beginning to deliver on its promise of becoming the so-called “Everything Exchange,” evolving from a market-dependent crypto exchange into a core infrastructure provider for the burgeoning “onchain economy,” the analysts said.

“We regard COIN at this point as less of a cyclical crypto brokerage and more of a foundational infrastructure platform for the emerging onchain economy,” they wrote. “Stablecoins, crypto derivatives, tokenization, decentralized finance (DeFi), payments, prediction markets, and AI- native commerce are all at different stages of scaling within the company’s ecosystem.”

Last week, Coinbase reported a net loss of $394 million in the first quarter of 2026, and a steep miss on estimates, with revenue coming in at $755.8 million. On a non-GAAP basis, Adjusted EBITDA came in at $303.3 million, down from $929.9 million in Q1 2025. This led to a 6% selloff in COIN shares.

Also early last week, ahead of the earnings report, Coinbase announced it was shedding 14% of its staff.

Still growing

While Coinbase missed revenue and EBITDA estimates, with declining transaction and subscription and services revenues, Benchmark noted the firm gained market share despite weak crypto markets. The exchange reached an all-time high of 8.6% global crypto trading volume share.

Further, the exchange posted its 12th consecutive quarter of net inflows, with about $294 billion worth of assets now on the platform. 

“That dynamic matters because COIN’s strategy increasingly revolves around using trust, custody, liquidity, and compliance infrastructure as foundational advantages from which it can expand into adjacent financial products and services,” the analysts said.

Benchmark also pointed to Coinbase’s growing product line, with 12 monetized businesses each generating about $100 million in annualized revenue. Notably, derivatives hit an all-time high revenue contribution in the quarter, while Coinbase now accounts for about 50% of total USDC stablecoin economics.

Base, the Ethereum scaling layer incubated by the exchange, also appears to be “underappreciated.” The analysts note stablecoin transaction volume on the blockchain increased 10x year over year, while Base could also benefit from its increasing integrations in the “agentic economy” and for DeFi.

“The improving regulatory backdrop for crypto may become the largest catalyst of all for COIN,” the analysts wrote, noting that Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal has “expressed confidence that the CLARITY Act could become law by the end of summer 2026.”

“Management emphasized that the comprehensive market structure legislation could unlock substantial institutional participation across tokenization, custody, stablecoins, lending, and crypto-enabled financial services,” Benchmark noted.

Benchmark is not alone in seeing a rosy future for Coinbase. Rosenblatt Securities and Bernstein also reiterated their Buy ratings last week.

While Mizuho did not revise its Neutral analysis of COIN in a Tuesday report, the firm did buck the trend by saying that much of Coinbase’s potential upside has already been priced in. Notably, Mizuho said Coinbase’s sizable lead against competitors like Robinhood for non-professional traders has been shrinking, and fell to “~51% in 1Q26, which is the lowest point” it has measured.

“We value COIN at ~17x our 2027E Adj. EBITDA, PT $200,” Mizuho said. “This is a meaningful premium to payments, exchanges, and asset manager peers, which we view as warranted given COIN’s expanding product suite, improved cost discipline (recent restructuring), and secular tailwinds from regulatory clarity and broader crypto adoption. That said, the stock is currently trading at ~17x 2027E estimates, suggesting the market is already pricing in this upside.”

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