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0 points827a1mo ago0 comments

You have to look past literally everything their leadership is saying and at the heart of the matter: This is a dying company, and they physically will not have the capital to pay paychecks if they don't do this. Everything else is window dressing to try to keep investors on-board, but they aren't buying it, and neither should you.

The crypto market winter that started in Q4 last year led to Coinbase's ~worst quarter ever ($667M loss). Crypto has not recovered. Coinbase has done nothing to stem the outflows. That same quarter HOOD showed a net profit of $605M; and showed a $346M profit last week. COIN and HOOD are two very similar companies.

COIN's earnings are in two days. They preceded the earnings call with layoffs, which is always a bad sign. And HOOD's net income has dropped by like 40%, though they're still at least profitable. You should be prepared for COIN to announce a similar drop; except, COIN wasn't even profitable before. Its going to be a bloodbath.

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7 comments · 4 top-level

adonese1mo ago· 3 in thread

what is happening to crypto that is causing this? I was thinking with the recent conflicts crypto would thrive, if anything.

seviu1mo ago

Previous cycles were fueled by retail, with an industry trying to legitimize itself.

This cycle is about max extraction and fraud - Legitimized by the presidential family cashing out billions in meme coins, insider trading and forks of existing protocols.

Hacks have also been hitting hard. North Korea has stolen 500m this year alone and 2b last year.

So… no thriving. On the opposite. Dying is a more appropriate word at this time. Some would call this an opportunity. I see more pain ahead.

No wonder Coinbase is laying off people with the excuse of AI. The reality is that volume is zero. At this stage only me and a bunch of other retail weirdos keep on buying bitcoin paycheck by paycheck…

827aOP1mo ago

IMO there's actually an opposite effect going on: Retail was never the main driver behind crypto pricing. Think of it like this: If every US adult purchased $1000 in BTC, that purchase would represent a level of volume that BTC, otherwise & at today's historically low volume, takes about 5 days to clear. BTC volume is too high to be explained by retail.

Crypto volume comes from institutional liquidity, not retail. All of that liquidity has moved from crypto to AI. It turns out that the liquidity wasn't actually interested in the technology or the philosophy; they were interested in outsized ROI. Think of BTC not as a currency, but as a share of stock in the crypto technology sector.

vkou1mo ago

Idiots who were getting fleeced by shitcoin pump and dumps are now getting fleeced by insiders betting on heads of state being assassinated.

That's the problem with building your castle on a quicksand whose fundamentals aren't in the same order of magnitude as the market cap you command. When all you truly offer is gambling, eventually a shinier casino will open up and eat your lunch.

tverbeure1mo ago

I see $667M loss numbers in the press, but I also see a positive P/E ratio? How does that work?

Edit: it’s because the loss is an accounting loss due to mark to market adjustment, while the company is operationally profitable.

I assume that’s still no great, but not nearly as dire as the reported loss suggests, and not a sign of a dying company.

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viking1231mo ago

The thing is that the former crypto gamblers have moved on to gamble in the prediction markets like Polymarket now. Not sure if COIN is coming back from this.

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echelon1mo ago

Almost every "AI washing", except for the firms that are spending massively on data center capex (Microsoft, Meta), is coming from a company that is hurting.

The macro is not great right now. The world economy is on a razor's edge. If things unwind, we could all be in for a world of economic hurt. There aren't many levers to pull us out this time around, either.

Crypto is in an even worse state. Investors want liquidity for the uncertainty. Plus there's the looming Q-day that keeps getting pushed earlier and earlier by the experts while we're also inching nearer and nearer on the clock.

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