Coinbase Reports $394 Million Q1 Loss, Its Second Consecutive Quarterly Miss

Coinbase posted a $394 million net loss in the first quarter of 2026, marking its second consecutive quarterly loss and sending shares down more than 5% in after-hours trading. The Thursday earnings report compounded a difficult week for the largest U.S. crypto exchange, which announced a 14% workforce reduction earlier in the week.

Net revenue fell 31% year over year to $1.4 billion, missing the Wall Street consensus of roughly $1.49 billion. The result reversed a profit of $66 million from the same period last year and followed a $667 million loss in Q4 2025.

This story is an excerpt from the Unchained Daily newsletter.

Transaction revenue, which forms the core of Coinbase’s business, dropped 40% year over year to $756 million. Consumer transaction revenue fell 23% sequentially to $567 million, while institutional revenue declined 27% to $136 million. CFO Alesia Haas told investors that total crypto market cap and trading volumes were both down more than 20% quarter over quarter, with historically low volatility weighing on long-tail assets.

The headline GAAP loss was distorted by accounting on Coinbase’s corporate balance sheet. The company recorded a $482 million unrealized loss on crypto assets held for investment, marked to market at quarter-end with prices well below their Q4 2025 highs. Excluding those swings, adjusted net loss was approximately $46 million, and adjusted EBITDA came in at $303 million, the company’s 13th consecutive positive quarter on that metric.

Coinbase ended the quarter with more than $10 billion in cash and cash equivalents and roughly $12 billion in total available resources. The company repurchased $1.1 billion of its Class A common stock during the quarter and intends to retire $1.3 billion in convertible notes due June 1. For Q2, transaction revenue through May 5 stood at approximately $215 million, and Coinbase guided subscription and services revenue to a range of $565 million to $645 million.