Published 27 August 2026. Coinbase closed at $187.16 on 26 August 2026, down roughly 53% from its 52-week high of $402.16 and up 35% from its 52-week low of $139.11. Goldman Sachs raised its target to $196 on 25 August. The street runs from $148 (Barclays) to $330 (Bernstein). Verdict: the operating business is winning share while the reported numbers get worse – and the stock is priced for whichever of those two facts you believe matters.
Coinbase is the rare large-cap where the bull case and the bear case are built from the same earnings release. In Q2 2026 the company posted its highest-ever share of crypto trading volume and its third consecutive quarterly GAAP loss. Both are true. Neither is spin. The $148-to-$330 spread on Wall Street is not analysts disagreeing about the facts – it is analysts disagreeing about which set of facts the market will eventually pay for.
Key facts
- COIN price: $187.16 at the 26 August 2026 close; intraday range $174.73-$189.27 – Investing.com
- 52-week range: $139.11 to $402.16 – the stock sits 53.5% below the high and 34.5% above the low
- Goldman Sachs target $196, raised from $173 on 25 August 2026 by analyst James Yaro, Buy rating maintained
- Street low $148 (Barclays, Equal Weight); street high $330 (Bernstein, Outperform, cut from $440 in late March 2026)
- Q2 2026 revenue $1.22bn, down 19% year on year, below consensus – Coinbase investor relations
- Q2 net loss $359.5m; GAAP diluted EPS -$1.36 against consensus of +$0.15 – the third straight GAAP loss
- Record 10.3% share of global crypto trading volume, a third consecutive quarter of record share
- Subscription and services revenue $555.1m – a record 48% of net revenue of $1.15bn, against $599.2m of transaction revenue
- Adjusted EBITDA $208m, the 14th consecutive positive quarter
- Bitcoin traded near $78,800 on 27 August 2026 with total crypto market cap around $2.76trn
What actually happened in Q2, and why it reads two ways
Total revenue fell 19% year on year to $1.22bn. That is the number that made the headlines, and it is genuinely bad. But the reason is largely external: total crypto market capitalisation fell 11% quarter on quarter and spot trading volumes across the industry dropped 25%. Coinbase earns a spread on activity, and activity contracted.
Against a 25% industry volume decline, Coinbase took its share of global crypto trading volume to an all-time high of 10.3% – the third consecutive quarter of record share. That is the single most important operating fact in the release. A business losing revenue while gaining share is being hurt by its market, not by its competitors. A business losing revenue while losing share is being replaced. Coinbase is the first kind, and the distinction is worth roughly the entire gap between $148 and $330.
The $359.5m net loss needs unpacking too, because it is not an operating loss. Adjusted EBITDA was positive $208m, the 14th consecutive positive quarter. The GAAP loss came predominantly from marks on crypto assets held for investment, plus far smaller gains on equity investments than the year-ago period. When a company holds crypto on its balance sheet and crypto falls 11% in a quarter, the income statement records that – it does not mean the exchange stopped working. The counter-argument, which is fair, is that this cuts both ways and investors have been happy to count those marks as earnings when they ran the other direction.
The diversification is real, and it is the part the bulls are actually buying
Subscription and services revenue hit $555.1m, a record 48% of net revenue. That line – stablecoin income, staking, custody, Coinbase One – does not depend on people day-trading. It is the closest thing Coinbase has to recurring revenue, and it has been growing its share of the mix through a falling market, which is exactly when it matters.
The product cadence behind it has been unusually fast this month. FinanceFeeds reported that Coinbase debuted tokenized US stocks on Base for investors outside the US, and separately that Coinbase is using Chainlink to price four stock tokens while Aave lending waits for v4. Whether tokenized equities become a real revenue line or a footnote is unresolved, but it tells you where management is pointing: at products that earn fees regardless of crypto volatility.
Grading the $148 to $330 spread
Here is the street laid against the 26 August close of $187.16. Note that this is a genuine two-sided distribution: the low end sits meaningfully below the current price, which is not always the case on a widely-held large cap.
| Case | Target | vs $187.16 spot | Anchor | What has to be true |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bear | $148 | -20.9% | Barclays, Equal Weight | Crypto volumes keep contracting, GAAP losses run to a fourth and fifth quarter, and record share stops being enough to offset a shrinking pie |
| Base | $196 | +4.7% | Goldman Sachs, raised 25 Aug 2026 | Bitcoin holds the $78,000-$80,000 area, volumes stabilise, and the 48% subscription mix keeps the floor under revenue |
| Consensus | $196.55 to $215.11 | +5.0% to +14.9% | Investing.com avg / MarketBeat avg | 22 of 25 covering analysts rate the stock a buy; the average target has drifted up with bitcoin |
| Bull | $330 | +76.3% | Bernstein, Outperform | A genuine crypto recovery restores volumes on top of record share, and stablecoin, derivatives and prediction-market lines scale into it |
Two things are worth flagging about that table. First, Bernstein’s $330 is a cut from $440 made in late March 2026 – the street high has already come down a long way, so it is not a stale bubble-era number. Second, even Bernstein’s bull case leaves COIN 18% below its own 52-week high of $402.16. Nobody covering this stock is currently forecasting a return to where it traded a year ago.
The bear case, stated at its strongest
It is easy to wave away three consecutive GAAP losses as accounting noise. Do not. The pattern the bears point to is this: Coinbase’s revenue is a leveraged bet on crypto activity, that activity has now declined for multiple quarters, and the company’s answer – take more share of a smaller market – has a mathematical ceiling. Share cannot exceed 100%, and at 10.3% the incremental gains get harder against Binance and a widening field of brokerages adding crypto.
The balance-sheet exposure compounds it. Holding crypto as an investment means the reported bottom line swings with the asset class in both directions, which raises the cost of capital for anyone who has to underwrite the earnings stream. And bitcoin at roughly $78,800 is well off its highs; if it revisits lower levels, Q3 prints another mark-driven loss and the “it is just marks” defence gets harder to make for a fourth time. That path leads toward Barclays’ $148 without requiring anything dramatic – just more of what already happened.
Quick take
The setup: record market share and record revenue diversification, wrapped around a 19% revenue decline and a third straight GAAP loss. The market is paying $187.16 for that combination.
The number that matters most: 10.3% share. If it keeps climbing through a weak tape, the bear case is a cyclical story with an expiry date. If it stalls, the bear case is structural.
The asymmetry: $39 of downside to the street low against $143 of upside to the street high. That skew is why 22 of 25 analysts sit on buy – but the skew exists precisely because the downside scenario is considered more likely than the upside one, not less.
The catalyst calendar: Q3 results are the next hard test of whether the subscription mix can hold 48% while transaction revenue keeps sliding. Bitcoin’s behaviour around $78,000-$80,000 sets the tone in the meantime.
For a comparable read on a brokerage with crypto exposure priced on a different set of arguments, see FinanceFeeds’ Robinhood (HOOD) bull and bear case. The Goldman revision itself is covered in Goldman raises Coinbase target to $196 as Canaccord lifts Strategy to $175.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Coinbase (COIN) stock price prediction?
Wall Street targets run from $148 at the low (Barclays, Equal Weight) to $330 at the high (Bernstein, Outperform), against a 26 August 2026 close of $187.16. Goldman Sachs sits at $196 after raising from $173 on 25 August. Average targets cluster between $196.55 and $215.11 depending on the source, implying roughly 5% to 15% upside.
Why did Coinbase report a loss in Q2 2026?
The $359.5m net loss came mainly from marks on crypto assets Coinbase holds for investment, not from the exchange business. Adjusted EBITDA was positive $208m – the 14th consecutive positive quarter. GAAP diluted EPS was -$1.36 against consensus of +$0.15, the third straight GAAP loss.
Is Coinbase losing market share?
No – the opposite. Coinbase reached an all-time-high 10.3% share of global crypto trading volume in Q2 2026, its third consecutive quarter of record share. Revenue fell because the overall market shrank: total crypto market cap dropped 11% quarter on quarter and spot volumes fell 25%.
What is the bull case for COIN stock?
$330, or 76.3% above spot, per Bernstein. It requires a genuine recovery in crypto trading activity landing on top of record market share, with the subscription and services line – already a record 48% of net revenue at $555.1m – scaling through stablecoins, derivatives and newer products such as tokenized equities.
What is the bear case for COIN stock?
$148, or 20.9% below spot, per Barclays. It requires crypto volumes to keep contracting, GAAP losses to extend past three quarters, and share gains to stop compensating for a shrinking addressable market. Bitcoin weakness near $78,800 would keep balance-sheet marks working against reported earnings.
How far is COIN from its all-time high?
The stock closed at $187.16 on 26 August 2026, roughly 53.5% below its 52-week high of $402.16 and 34.5% above its 52-week low of $139.11. Notably, even the most bullish street target of $330 would leave it 18% below that 52-week high.
What should investors watch next?
Three things: whether subscription and services revenue holds its 48% share of the mix in Q3, whether the 10.3% trading-share figure keeps rising, and bitcoin’s behaviour around the $78,000-$80,000 area, which drives both transaction revenue and the balance-sheet marks that have produced three consecutive GAAP losses.
This article is for information only and does not constitute financial, investment or trading advice. FinanceFeeds does not recommend buying, selling or holding any security. Prices, analyst targets and company figures cited were verified on 27 August 2026 and change continuously. Do your own research and consider your own circumstances before acting.
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