Another risk: Coinbase’s fortunes tend to correspond to Bitcoin’s volatile history. The exchange only turned a profit last year as institutional demand for crypto assets propelled Bitcoin and other coins such as Ether to new highs. The recent lean years, known as the crypto winter, stretched from 2018 to 2019, with Bitcoin hitting a low of about $3,100 in December 2018. Until then, Coinbase was known for listing only the big hitters in the crypto world, including Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ether.
