(Kitco News) – The World’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (Nasdaq: COIN), said that it saw solid first-quarter earnings as many digital currencies rallied to record highs since the start of the year.
Thursday after the North American equity close, the first publicly listed crypto exchange reported revenues in the first quarter of $1.80 billion and earnings per share of $3.05. The company said that net income for the first quarter of 2021 was $771.5 million.
“Adjusted EBITDA was $1.12 billion, representing a 70% margin relative to our net revenue. We ended Q1 2021 with $1.98 billion in cash and cash equivalents,” the company said.
However, the earnings missed expectations as analysts forecasted revenues of $1.81 billion and an EPS of $3.09.
“Our strong Q1 2021 results reflect the strength of the crypto price cycle we entered in Q4 2020. We saw many crypto assets reach all-time high prices, high levels of volatility, and increased interest across the entire crypto-economy. Crypto market capitalization reached nearly $2 trillion at the end of Q1 2021 compared to $782 billion at the end of Q4 2020,” the company said in its earnings report.
This market environment drove strong engagement with the Coinbase platform, reflected in retail, institutional and ecosystem partner growth across all key metrics including our Verified Users, retail Monthly Transacting Users (MTUs), Trading Volume, and Assets on Platform,” the company added.
While the cryptocurrency exchange is celebrating its first earnings report after going public last month, the company highlighted growing competition in the marketplace.
“Despite our strong Q1 results, the rapid expansion of the crypto-economy also creates challenges for Coinbase. Competition is increasing as new market entrants join the crypto-economy every month. Our competitors are supporting certain crypto assets that are experiencing large trading volume and growth in market capitalization that we do not currently support, as well as offering new products and services that we do not offer. We welcome these challenges as they indicate that the market we serve is growing rapidly, but we also have to continue to move quickly to address them, and that inspires us towards action and growth,” the company said.
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