About half of bitcoin holders using Coinbase as an exchange likely are facing losses, after the largest cryptocurrency fell to $20,834 late Monday, the lowest level since December 2020, according to analysts at Mizuho.
Bitcoin
BTCUSD,
is trading at around $21,523, down 6% over the past 24 hours and almost 70% lower from its all-time high in November, according to CoinDesk data.
A Mizuho survey pegged the average cost basis for bitcoin holders on Coinbase
COIN,
at $21,000, based on a poll of 145 customers on the exchange. With the cryptocurrency falling below that figure, they estimate roughly half of holders surveyed would be facing losses.
Bitcoin has plunged below its current realized price of $23,430, according to data at Glassnode. The metric represents the average price of every bitcoin in supply, valued at the last time it was last spent on the blockchain.
Bitcoin rarely has dipped below its realized price “outside the deepest and latest stages of bear markets,” the Glassnode analysts wrote in a Tuesday note. The last instances when it dropped below such levels were in March 2020, and the end of the 2018-2019 bear market.
Meanwhile, Coinbase is estimated to have seen $220 billion of total trading volume of crypto for the second quarter, well below its $309 billion volume in the first quarter, analysts at Mizuho wrote in a Tuesday note.
They estimated average daily trading volume on Coinbase at $1.7 billion from June 1 to June 11. If recent weakness lingers through the end of the year, the company’s total volume in 2022 would be about $836 billion, potentially translating to $3 billion of revenue, or 30% below current consensus, the Mizuho analysts wrote.
What’s more, Coinbase said Tuesday that it would slash 18% of its head count. It could hurt the company’s efforts to find new revenue streams as Coinbase faces increasing competition, according to the analysts.