The U.S.’s most prominent crypto exchange is printing money again, making the recent Crypto Winter feel like a distant memory. On Thursday, Bitcoin on its exchange. That’s about 60% of its fourth-quarter revenue.
The crypto exchange also saw the fees it gets for institutional trading almost triple from the prior quarter to more than $140 million in the fourth.
Brian Armstrong, cofounder and CEO of Coinbase, pointed to the growth of its institutional trading vertical in Thursday’s earnings call. “We are a multiproduct business,” he said.
Stablecoins and blockchain rewards
Coinbase also posted significant revenue from stablecoins and blockchain rewards.
The crypto exchange has a revenue-sharing agreement with Circle, the issuer of USDC, the second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization. Circle backs its stablecoins with U.S. Treasuries and pockets the interest it earns from holding U.S. debt. Coinbase reported that it had generated $225 million from its deal with Circle in the fourth quarter of 2024.
The crypto exchange also reported almost $215 million in revenue from “blockchain rewards.” This refers to the money Coinbase earns through staking, or when companies or individuals put crypto they own into escrow to secure a blockchain. In return for locking up their crypto, stakers receive interest.
In Coinbase’s case, that interest from staking represented almost 10% of its fourth-quarter returns.
‘Trump bump’ or regulatory sea change?
Traders, though, weren’t immediately impressed by Coinbase’s earnings. After markets opened on Friday, the crypto company’s stock slid about 4% to $276.
Dolev, the analyst at Mizuho Securities, wasn’t surprised. He noted that Coinbase reported about $750 million in revenue from trading from the beginning of 2025 to Feb. 11. If that trend continues, its quarter-over-quarter revenue from transactions will remain flat.
“People are really worried that this was a one-time Trump bump,” he said of Coinbase’s fourth-quarter results. “Anything that feeds into this fear is a neg[ative] on these stocks.”
Still, Ryan, the analyst at Citizens JMP, believes positive regulatory shifts in D.C. for crypto will be tailwinds for Coinbase in 2025. Donald Trump’s administration has promised long-awaited crypto legislation . The 47th president has also installed crypto boosters to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission , two of the U.S.’s most important financial regulators.
“The trading volumes that people get so anxious about ebb and flow on a quarter-to-quarter basis,” Ryan said. “We are now on the cusp of [legal] clarity.”
