Morning Minute: Coinbase Smashes Q3 Earnings Despite Sideways Crypto Market

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. Analysis and opinions expressed are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the morning minute on Substack.

GM!

Today’s big news:

• Crypto majors fall 2-3% after Powell says the rate is not certain in December
• US Senator Says Binance Helped Launch TRUMP For CZ Pardon
• Coinbase smashes earnings with $1.9B in revenue; Armstrong toys with mention markets
• MSTR beats earnings with $2.8B in profit, holds 640,808 BTC
• Token Works announces REKTSTR as the first ERC20 strategy

📈 Coinbase Crushes Q3 Earnings, Transaction Revenue Toplines Surge

Crypto exchange Coinbase beat its Q3 earnings.

And now he finds himself on top Bitcoin in 2025.

📌 What happened

Coinbase announced its Q3 results yesterday after the market closed, above past expectations.

Main takeaways:

• The revenue of $1.9 billion (~55% year over year), beating the consensus by around $200M
• Net income $433 million (477% year on year)
• Transaction revenue is at the top $1B (+83% YoY)a demographic shift driven by institutional flows and high-frequency trading
• The monthly transaction users (MTU) have reached 12.6 mbeating expectations and reversing the previous quarter’s decline
• Base Layer (the company’s Layer-2 chain) achieved Positive adjusted EBITDA for the first time
• Forward guidance: Coinbase projects Q4 revenue in the $2.2 billion – $2.3 billion range, assuming the average daily trading volume in the $300B range and modest crypto price wind.

Coinbase also bought ~$300M worth of Bitcoin in Q3.

🗣️ What they say

“We are accelerating payments through stablecoin adoption, which we anticipate will continue despite the political winds, and continued adoption by financial institutions and businesses for payment and treasury needs.” – Coinbase shareholder letter

🧠 Because it is important

Coinbase has a few factors in its favor right now: volatility, institutional demand, stablecoin adoption and favorable regulatory changes.

Expand on those:

• Increased volatility in digital assets in July and strong institutional interest helped drive the increase in transaction revenues.
• They see the growing importance of stablecoins for payments and treasury use, saying they anticipate continued growth in stable-coin adoption supported by “political tailwinds” and institutional/corporate demand.
• Trading volumes and revenues benefited from a crypto rally linked to both macro developments and favorable regulatory changes.

Additionally, its L2 base continues to shine and drive significant revenue for the company.

It’s a strong combination.

And it will need to, with more and more large banks and institutions entering the crypto game (custody, trading and more).

But maybe that turns into a tailwind for Coinbase as well, with its crypto-as-a-service offering starting to catch on.

The stronger Coinbase is, the more attractive COIN stock is compared to crypto majors (including Bitcoin).

Many who are just exploring the space will be attracted by the income and fundamentals COIN offers). And it has outperformed Bitcoin YTD.

If this trend continues, expect more capitulation out of crypto tokens and in picks and shovels (coin stocks).

🌎 Macro Crypto and Memes

A few Crypto and Web3 titles that caught my eye:

• Crypto majors are down 1-3% after a big post-FOMC dip yesterday; BTC -3% to $110,100, ETH -3% to $3,900, BNB +1% to $1,120, SOL -2% to $192
• ZEC (+ 2 %) and AERO (+ 2 %) lead the first movements
• 870M+ was liquidated from the crypto market yesterday after Bitcoin dip to $106,000 leading many alts in 5-10% +
• Senator Chris Murphy has claimed that Binance helped coordinate the launch of Trump memecoin in exchange for CZ’s pardon (also present on the WSJ)
• Coinbase Q3 beat the revenue with ~$1.9B, transaction revenue topped $1B
• Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase also mentioned several keywords from the forecast market mention markets, raising concerns about the integrity of the market
• Strategy (MicroStrategy) Q3 reported ~$2.8B profit in Q3 despite softer BTC; treasury > $68B BTC (640,808 BTC)
• Drake and Adin Ross they were suedwith the class action lawsuit alleging deceptive promotions for the crypto casino Stake
• Western Union applied to the WUUSD brand for its stablecoin

In Corporate Treasuries / ETFs

In Memes

• The leaders of Memecoin they are mostly red; DOGE -2%, Shiba -1%, PEPE -3%, PENGU -8%, BONK -2%, TRUMP -1%, SPX -7%, and FARTCOIN -7%
• LAB (+80%), pippin (+69%) and jelly jelly (+23%) lead the top meme movers; MACHINES + 88 times the main engines

💰 Token, Airdrop and Protocol Tracker

Here is a summary of the main token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:

🚚 What is happening in NFT?

Here is the list of other notable titles from the day in NFT: