COIN- Fundamental and technical analysis****NOT THE INVESTMENT ADVICE**** I'm neutral in my assessment. Please do your own due diligence.
In this analysis, I leave out external and macro factors such as crypto adoption and regulatory concern. Rather, I want to focus on things Coinbase can control.
Main points-
To start off, I believe Coinbase has the bright future and its biggest risk is the execution risk. However, in order for it to succeed, few conditions need to be fulfilled.
***The big bets need to take off (NFT market place, potential derivative offerings & Dapp marketplace and Coinbase wallet). When they do, the subscription and service revenue would go up and the decoupling may happen (crypto market price crash will have less effect on the COIN price) or at the very least Coinbase will be less dependent on the trading revenue, which currently accounts for 87% of the total revenue).
***NFT marketplace must take off next year- Both FTX and Binance have tried, but they failed to win the significant market share from OpenSea. What other strategies does Coinbase have to win market shares from OpenSea other than enhanced social features and trading fee waiver when the overall pie isn’t growing? (NFT trading volume and floor price are trending lower)
***Coinbase wallet must acquire more market share- How can Coinbase monetize the wallet when the market-leader MetaMask is provided for free? The success of Coinbase wallet is essential so Coinbase doesn’t become just another fiat on-ramp provider. It’s also instrumental to Coinbase’s overarching strategy of becoming all-encompassing platform where users can access all crypto-related activities.
***How to extract more revenue from institutional investors? Any strategies to increase the custodial fee and commerce fee?
The upside-
Cardano staking- Most of the subscription and service revenue come from the blockchain reward and the blockchain reward itself is consisted of mostly staking revenue. Cardano staking may further boost the blockchain reward revenue when it’s already the second biggest revenue source for Coinbase.
Coinbase is focusing on its long-term vision- DeFi, Protocols+Web Infra and NFT/Mertaverse account for 60% of Coinbase’s ventu res portfolio. This is important as most major use cases in crypto ecosystem come from DeFi, NFT and DAO space.
Still the most trusted brand with advanced and industry-leading security features. It has the security infrastructure and regulatory compliance advantage against international competitors such as FTX and Binance. While against domestic competitors such as Gemini and Kraken, it has the crypto offering advantage.
Strong balance sheet enables Coinbase to acquire competitors during the crypto winter. Most of its long-term debts are convertible notes with the earliest maturity date in 2026.
Still the leader of regulated U.S exchanges based on the spot volume, around 46% in 2021. Coinbase has recently become the first-ever crypto firm to join the Fortune 500 list of the largest U.S. firms by revenue. One caveat is that there are no strong barrier and switching cost that would prevent Coinbase customers from going to another exchange. More sustainable moat can be achieved if Coinbase can create a platform that provides all-access to crypto activities, realizing its long-term vision of becoming the Amazon of crypto services.
Problem diagnosis-
Verified user, trading volume, MTU and ATRPU are the most important metrics to watch out for in addition to other common financial metrics.
The persistent theme is that the the declining trade volume and MTU (Monthly transacting users) are hurting Coinbase.
Trading revenue accounts for 87% of overall revenue, the rest in subscription and service revenue, mostly in blockchain reward from staking.
Retail only accounts for 23% of trading volume, but it accounts for 95% of trading revenue- Retail actually pays 14x the fee compared to institutional. Not much revenue is generated from institutional clients even though they dominate the trading volume because they receive deep discount for executing large trade, bringing in the flow, proving liquidity and acting as market makers. As soon as there’s some regulatory clarity, trading fee erosion can happen when bigger financial institutions and banks decide to enter the space, leading to the race to the bottom effect.
Decline in retail trading volume while Institutional trading volume actually went up during the same time- Altcoins now account for fully 55% of transaction volumes and they are likely contributing to the rapid decline of retail transaction volume. Retails trade a lot of altcoins during the bull market and they stop trading altcoins in bearish market or when the volatility is low. Institutionals, on the other hands, trade mostly in Bitcoin and Ethereum and their trading volume is less affected by the market downturn. One could argue that this is the downside of adding more risky assets on the platform as it adds more volatility during the bear market, though these same assets flourish and bring in a lot of revenue during the bull market. Therefore, it’s a double edged sword.
Increase in verified users and MTU may not translate to increase in ATRPU- Increasingly, users are engaging in more non-trading activities such as yield-generating staking which generates far less revenue than high-fee trading activities. This is not necessarily a bad thing as Coinbase has always been pushing for a more diversified revenue stream.
In summary, Coinbase will likely continue to have more verified users, but even if those verified users become MTU, it may still experience the decline in revenue and ATRPU because of the decline in retail trading volume, trading activity and trading fee unless Coinbase can somehow find ways to extract more revenues from institutional clients and increase the percentage of the subscription and service revenue in total revenue.
The downside-
Weakening guidance as the company anticipated further decline in trading volume and MTU in 2022
Horizontal analysis revealed that Equity-Based Compensation (EBC) and SG&A ballooned while revenue suffered this quarter, leading to the weakening operating leverage. This concern is somewhat addressed during the recent 18% layoff as Coinbase aims to keep the EBITDA loss around 500 mil in the face of decline ATRPU, NOPAT and FCF.
Impairment cost rule means Coinbase could suffer more non-cash loss on its crypto asset investment in the near future if the market selloff triggered by the Terra/Luna debacle and over-leverage unwind continues.
Despite the strong balance sheet, customer custodial funds account for nearly 50% of the total asset, making Coinbase susceptible to the potential bank run risk.
Coinbase recently filed shelf registration statement with the SEC. Just a minor concern as It has no intention to issue any new stocks anytime soon.
Structural and ecosystem risk- Coinbase has strong interdependent and venture capital relationship with many crypto firms it invests and supports in its venture portfolio. Any insolvency and liquidity issues these firms experience during the prolonged bear crypto market could potentially have the negative impact on Coinbase’s operation.
In summary, Coinbase has never been hit by bad macro environment and crypto downturn at the same time. In order for it to navigate through the current bear crypto market, Coinbase needs to apply the combination of financial prudence and execution nimbleness while making sure the development of high-priority product and service can continue unaffected.
