CoinbaseCOIN
$48.7B market capClassified by the SEC under finance services.
Coinbase in 30 checks
Coinbase at a glance: how it scores on value, growth, quality, health, shareholder returns and trend. The fuller the shape, the stronger the company. Behind each axis are six pass-or-fail checks from its filings, spelled out in the chapters below. Point at an axis to see them.
The business itself is the question here - 12 of 30 checks passed.
Value
What you pay today for what the business produces, measured against COIN's own history and its peers, never a universal rule.
Expensive against its own history and its sector (judged on sales - not yet profitable) - you're paying up for what you get.
Coinbase isn't profitable yet - so is the price high compared to its sales?
→At 7.8x sales, the market is paying about what it has typically paid COIN's own 5-year median of 7.5x. Neither a bargain nor a stretch by its own standard.
What has the market paid for COIN over the years?
→At 7.8x sales, the market is paying about what it has typically paid COIN's own 5-year median of 7.5x. Neither a bargain nor a stretch by its own standard. Today's multiple is the lowest in the charted history.
What cash return does the business throw off per dollar of market value?
3.5%FCF yield today
◌ 2026 = at the latest close (2026-09-04), over the trailing twelve months; earlier years are annual averages
→At 3.5%, the business is throwing off more cash per dollar of market value than its own 5-year median of 3.4% - the cheaper end of its history.
What does “Value” actually mean?
Value asks what you pay for each dollar of earnings, sales or cash the business produces. A high multiple isn't automatically bad - fast growers earn theirs - but a price far above the company's own history means the market expects a lot to go right. We compare each multiple to the company's own past and to its sector, never to a universal rule.
How we scored it · 1 of 5 checks passed
| ✕ | Cheaper than its own history (sales - not yet profitable) | 7.75 vs 7.46 |
| ✕ | Cheaper than its peers (sales) | 7.75 vs 2.50 (peer median) |
| ✕ | Cheap on enterprise value vs sales | 7.30 vs 3.00 (peer median) |
| ✓ | Free cash flow yield above 3% | 3.5% vs 3.0% |
| ✕ | Cheap on enterprise value | 52.53 vs 14.00 (peer median) |
| – | Price isn't outrunning growth | no positive 3-year earnings growth to compare against |
Growth
What the company has actually reported - is it selling more, and is more of it becoming profit?
Growth is weak or inconsistent - the trend, not the story, is the problem.
Revenue: is the business selling more than it used to?
◌ 2026 = trailing twelve months to the latest filed quarter, not a full fiscal year
→Revenue reached $7.2B in 2025, compounding +31% a year since 2022 though the pace has cooled. The last twelve months (-10%) ran below that pace, so growth is slowing. The trailing twelve months are already running at $6.3B, behind the last full year.
Net income: how much of that revenue becomes profit?
◌ 2026 = trailing twelve months to the latest filed quarter, not a full fiscal year
→Net income was $1.3B in 2025, against $2.6B the year before. Earnings per share moved -133% over the last twelve months. Trailing twelve-month profit stands at $-948M.
How fast is it growing, year by year?
+9%revenue growth, FY 2025
Shown separately because they would flatten the axis: 2021 earnings +1017% · 2024 earnings +2500% - rebounds off a collapsed prior year.
→In 2025 revenue grew +9% while earnings moved -50% - when the earnings line runs above revenue, each new dollar of sales is arriving more profitably.
What does “Growth” actually mean?
Growth here is what the company has actually reported to the SEC - not a forecast. We look at the last year, the three-year pace, whether growth is speeding up or slowing down, and whether it's been consistent rather than one lucky year. Hatched bars are fourth quarters we derived from annual filings (companies file a full-year 10-K rather than a Q4 report).
How we scored it · 2 of 5 checks passed
| ✕ | Outgrew its sector last year | -10.4% vs 34.1% (sector 70th pct, n=73) |
| ✓ | Sustained growth beats its sector (3 years) | 31.0% vs 17.6% (sector 70th pct, n=55) |
| ✕ | Profits grew last year | -132.9% vs 0.0% |
| – | Profit growth beats its peers | earnings at or below zero at either end |
| ✕ | Growth is speeding up, not slowing | 1y -10.4% vs 3y 31.0% |
| ✓ | Grew per share, not just in total | 74.0% vs 0.0% |
Quality
Whether the growth makes real money - margins, returns on capital, and whether profits turn into cash.
Profitability is thin or negative - the growth isn't turning into money yet.
Margins: of every $1 of sales, how much survives each cost layer?
◌ 2026 = trailing twelve months to the latest filed quarter (2026-06-30), not a full fiscal year
→Operating margin widened 105 points to 20% since 2022. After everything, 18 cents of each sales dollar reaches net profit. COIN doesn't tag a gross-profit line in its filings, so the chart starts at operating margin.
Earnings quality: do the reported profits turn into real cash?
◌ 2026 = trailing twelve months to the latest filed quarter (2026-06-30), not a full fiscal year
→The company generated $2.4B of operating cash in 2025. With no profit to compare against, cash generation is the number that matters here.
What does it earn on the money it uses?
◌ 2026 = trailing twelve months to the latest filed quarter (2026-06-30), not a full fiscal year
→ROE 9% and ROCE 7% sit close together - the returns come from the business itself, not from borrowing.
How much of every sales dollar ends up as free cash?
◌ 2026 = trailing twelve months to the latest filed quarter, not a full fiscal year
→34 cents of every sales dollar became free cash in 2025, up 84 points since 2022.
What does staying competitive cost, per dollar of sales?
◌ 2026 = trailing twelve months to the latest filed quarter (2026-06-30), not a full fiscal year
→The biggest claim on each sales dollar is research and development, at 23% of revenue (stock compensation 12%, capital spending 0%). That share has fallen since 2022, so the cost of competing is easing.
Does COIN earn more on its capital than that capital costs?
→COIN earns 6.8% on the capital it employs, below the 10% most investors treat as the cost of capital.
What does “Quality” actually mean?
Quality asks whether the growth makes real money. Margins show how much of each sale survives costs; return on equity shows what shareholders earn on their capital; and the profit-to-cash comparison catches companies whose accounting profits never turn into actual cash.
How we scored it · 0 of 4 checks passed
| – | Better gross margins than peers | gross profit not tagged in its filings |
| ✕ | Runs leaner than peers (operating margin) | 9.9% vs 25.6% (sector 70th pct, n=45) |
| ✕ | Actually profitable | TTM net income $-948M |
| ✕ | Earns well on shareholders' money | -7.2% vs 16.1% (sector 70th pct, n=79) |
| ✕ | Earns a real return on the capital it employs | 3.2% vs 10.0% |
| – | Profits are cash, not accounting | loss-making or operating cash flow unavailable |
Health
The balance sheet stress test: could COIN survive a bad year?
A fortress balance sheet - COIN can survive a very bad year.
Could it handle its debt if things went wrong?
◌ 2026 = the latest balance sheet (2026-06-30), not a fiscal year-end
→The company holds $8.8B in cash against $5.9B of debt - a net-cash balance sheet, which means a bad year is an inconvenience rather than a threat.
Is the company's own capital growing or shrinking?
→The company's own capital grew from $6.3B in 2023 to $13.1B (+108%). The business is building book value rather than consuming it.
What does “Health” actually mean?
Health asks one question: can the business survive a bad year? We check whether near-term bills are covered, whether debt is modest and shrinking, whether earnings comfortably pay the interest, and - for loss-makers - how many years of cash are left at the current burn rate.
How we scored it · 5 of 6 checks passed
| ✓ | Comfortable near-term liquidity | 2.42 vs 1.50 |
| ✓ | Debt isn't dominating | 0.45 vs 1.00 |
| ✓ | Debt trending the right way | debt/equity 0.45 now vs 0.53 five years ago |
| ✓ | Earnings cover the interest | 6.92 vs 5.00 |
| ✕ | Converts sales to cash better than its sector | 27.3% vs 29.3% (sector 70th pct, n=77) |
| ✓ | Self-funding | TTM free cash flow $1.7B |
Shareholder returns
How much cash actually flows back to owners - dividends, buybacks, whether the share count truly falls, and whether what is handed back is affordable.
What comes back to owners is thin or stretched - read the checks before counting on it.
How much goes back to shareholders - and how much leaks out as stock compensation?
→Stock compensation ($839M) outweighs the $790M returned - the dilution is winning.
How fast is your ownership being diluted - or concentrated?
→5.1% more shares last year - your stake was diluted by that much.
COIN has issued or retired shares - did shareholders end up better off?
Both lines start at 100 in 2019, so the gap between them is what each share gained or lost. Share counts are split-adjusted.
→COIN's share count rose +368% from 2019 to 2025 while revenue per share grew +187%. Holders are further ahead than before, though the gain per share is smaller than the growth in the business.
Why compare buybacks with stock compensation?
A company can trumpet billions in buybacks while quietly issuing nearly as much stock to employees. What matters to you is the net effect: is the share count actually falling? If not, the 'return' is mostly recycling.
How we scored it · 2 of 4 checks passed
| ✕ | Share count isn't climbing | shares up 29.2% over 3 years |
| ✓ | Buybacks outpace the stock issued to staff | $2.0B bought back vs $939M of stock compensation |
| ✕ | What it hands back fits inside its cash flow | 118.7% vs 100.0% |
| ✓ | Meaningful yield to owners (dividends and buybacks) | $2.0B returned, 4.2% of market value |
| – | Reliable payer, never cut | no dividend in the last three years |
| – | Dividend growing ahead of inflation | no dividend in the last three years |
Trend analysis
What the market is doing about all of the above. This is price behaviour, not a fact about the business - read it as the market's current opinion, scored on six checks like every other chapter. The market is the S&P 500, measured by the SPY ETF with dividends included, over 3 months (63 trading sessions) and 12 months (252).
The market is voting against it right now - a falling trend on most measures.
How is COIN's trend actually behaving right now?
Chart by TradingView
→COIN is in a clear uptrend. The price is above the band where recent trading settled, and that band is still rising underneath it, so the floor keeps moving up. It crossed only 2 sessions ago, so treat it as unsettled. The last two weeks are running ahead of the last month and the price is above where it stood a month ago, so the shorter-term readings back the trend up. The band drawn for the coming weeks turns upward partway through, so the support beneath the price should firm up from there.
How the trend above is worked out
The trend read comes from the daily Ichimoku picture, a standard trend indicator, translated out of its jargon. It builds a band from the midpoints of the last 9, 26 and 52 sessions' highs and lows - in effect, the range where recent trading has settled - and draws that band 26 sessions into the future. Price above the band is an uptrend, below it a downtrend, inside it no trend. Because the band is drawn forward, the support for the next few weeks is already fixed and a change of its direction can be seen coming. We also compare the last two weeks against the last month, and today's price against where it stood a month ago. None of this says anything about the business; it describes the price only, and it is not advice. Where a check says 'the S&P 500', the comparison is with the SPY ETF including dividends, on the same adjusted basis as the stock's own price: short means 3 months, 63 trading sessions; long means 12 months, 252.
How we scored it · 2 of 6 checks passed
| ✕ | In an uptrend | 184.64 vs 192.76 |
| ✕ | Trend structure is healthy | 163.15 vs 192.76 |
| ✓ | Rising over 3 months | 21.2% vs 0.0% |
| ✓ | Beating the S&P 500 over 3 months | 21.2% vs 4.7% |
| ✕ | Beating the S&P 500 over 12 months | -39.8% vs 20.0% |
| ✕ | Not in a deep hole | -52.3% from its 52-week high |
Insider activity
What the people running the company do with their own shares - reported to the SEC within two days, classified so pay-plumbing doesn't masquerade as conviction.
Are the people running it buying or selling with their own money?
→No open-market buying, and $9M of selling across 8 months. Selling alone is a weak signal - much of it is pre-scheduled - but the absence of buying tells you no insider saw the price as a bargain.
Who did what, exactly?
| Date | Insider | Role | Type | Shares | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-01 | Frederick R Wilson | Director | SELL | 900 | $158,508 |
| 2026-09-01 | Frederick R Wilson | Director | SELL | 3,397 | $601,563 |
| 2026-09-01 | Frederick R Wilson | Director | SELL | 1,403 | $250,121 |
| 2026-09-01 | Frederick R Wilson | Director | SELL | 1,183 | $212,927 |
| 2026-09-01 | Frederick R Wilson | Director | SELL | 1,317 | $238,071 |
| 2026-09-01 | Frederick R Wilson | Director | SELL | 808 | $146,995 |
| 2026-09-01 | Frederick R Wilson | Director | SELL | 992 | $181,109 |
| 2026-08-24 | Jennifer N. Jones | Chief Accounting Officer | SELL | 2,062 | $389,203 |
| 2026-08-20 | Jennifer N. Jones | Chief Accounting Officer | tax | 2,502 | $400,820 |
| 2026-08-20 | Emilie Choi | President & COO | tax | 18,037 | $3M |
Why do the transaction types matter so much?
Most insider filings are not trades: stock grants, option exercises and tax withholding are how executives get paid, and gifts are estate planning. The signal lives in open-market transactions - a buy means an insider chose to spend their own cash on the stock. Sells are murkier: many are pre-scheduled 10b5-1 plans set months in advance. That's why the chart counts only open-market activity, and the table labels every row.