By Rishab Shaju and Pritam Biswas
May 7 (Reuters) – Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global on Thursday recorded a second-consecutive quarter of losses, as a crypto-driven market volatility sapped the company’s trading volumes during a period of broad digital-asset selloff.
The company’s shares were down about 4% in extended trading. They are down nearly 15% so far in 2026.
Trading volumes on digital-asset exchanges softened at the start of 2026, as waning momentum in crypto prices, tighter financial conditions and lingering macroeconomic uncertainty dampened appetite for risk, triggering a pullback following a rally to record highs in October last year.
Rising Middle East tensions also drove a broad risk-off shift in global markets, pushing investors into safe-haven assets.
Coinbase’s transaction revenue slumped about 40% to $756 million during the quarter, from $1.26 billion it recorded a year earlier.
Digital assets have lost their portfolio-hedge appeal, increasingly tracking broader financial markets and curbing cross-asset inflows, which has made it tougher for firms like Coinbase to generate counter-cyclical trading gains in downturns.
A TOUGH 2026
Earlier this week, Coinbase cut about 700 jobs, or about 14% of its global workforce, in a move to trim costs amid the crypto market volatility and in order to reposition its business for the artificial intelligence era.
Analysts had said that the job cuts reflect underperformance of the company’s shares and a drop in trading volumes. CEO Brian Armstrong added in a blog post that current market conditions have required the firm to streamline its operations and “emerge leaner” ahead of the next crypto cycle.
Robinhood Markets, a much smaller firm in terms of the number of token offerings it holds compared to Coinbase, missed estimates for quarterly revenue and profit last month, as softer trading volumes weighed on results.
Total revenue at Coinbase fell to $1.43 billion from $2.03 billion a year earlier.
The company reported a net loss of $394.1 million, or $1.49 per share, for the quarter ended March 31, compared with a profit of $65.6 million, or 24 cents per share, a year earlier.
(Reporting by Rishab Shaju and Pritam Biswas in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)
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