‘Fast becoming the AWS of Crypto financial infrastructure’
The latest results from Coinbase got only a slight boost from the firm’s partnerships with big banks, but it’s that unit that has Wall Street so optimistic on the crypto platform for the long term. The company’s stock rose 9% on Friday, just one day after Coinbase posted revenue of $1.87 billion for the third quarter, topping analysts’ estimates of $1.8 billion, per FactSet data. The cryptocurrency exchange’s topline grew as it partnered with financial giants like J.P. Morgan and PNC — an emerging focal point of its corporate strategy. Coinbase is “fast becoming the AWS of Crypto financial infrastructure as big banks such as JPM, Citi, PNC choose Coinbase as their Crypto partner,” Bernstein analyst Gautam Chhugani said Friday in a note to clients, referring to Amazon’s juggernaut cloud unit. In late July, Coinbase announced it would integrate its institutional-grade Crypto-as-a-Service platform into PNC, enabling the bank to let clients to buy, hold and sell digital assets. Later that month, the digital assets company also unveiled several offerings in partnership with J.P. Morgan, including a system to link Chase bank accounts to Coinbase wallets as well as options to transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards points to accounts on the crypto platform and fund those accounts using Chase credit cards. The agreements underscore traditional finance players’ growing embrace of digital assets — a shift that is poised to fuel Coinbase’s growth over the next few years, analysts said. Here’s what else Wall Street’s biggest sell-side shops had to say about Coinbase’s bank partnerships. Bernstein The investment firm has an outperform rating on Coinbase and a $510 price target on shares, implying 55% upside. “Coinbase is executing on its crypto dream, where blockchain rails would re-architect capital markets, banking and payments,” Bernstein analysts said Friday in their note. “Overall, we believe Coinbase is on the path of a generational business buildout and its fate is not just simply driven by crypto price action,” they added. Barclays The investment firm has an equal-weight rating on Coinbase. Its price target for the stock is $357.00 per share, suggesting 8.7% upside. “Management struck a confident tone across a number of ongoing initiatives including payments, exchanges, capital formation, and more,” Barclays analysts said Friday in a note to clients. “On the payments side, the company highlighted a huge B2B opportunity, particularly regarding cross-border payments, and noted a number of recent new partnerships, such as that with Citi.” Needham The firm has a buy on Coinbase shares. It also has a $400 price target on the stock, implying 21.8% upside. “Mgmt is seeing strong demand for COIN’s stablecoin infrastructure and solutions,” Needham analysts said Friday in a note to clients. “COIN continues to win mandates for partnerships with large enterprises (eg. Citi, Blackrock) and are seeing greater interest from small and medium businesses.” Rosenblatt The investment firm has a buy rating on Coinbase and a $470 price target on the stock, implying 43.1% upside. “Over 1,000 businesses are already onboarded to stablecoin payments, with another 1,000 on the wait list. Partnerships with Citi, Stripe, PayPal, Revolut, Webull, and Shopify highlight Coinbase’s role as the on-chain payments gateway.”
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