Bloomberg News reports that analysts of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. downgraded Coinbase Global for selling the rating as crypto winter is continuing to take a toll on the digital currency exchange that is struggling.
More on it
The firm’s shares dropped by as much as 11% to $56.02 Monday, placing them on track for extending their decline of 75% this year with Bitcoin value now at less than half from what it was six months ago. Analyst of Goldman William Nance cited the constant downdraft related to the crypto prices and the broader dip in the activity levels across this industry.
In a note written on Monday, Nance also stated that they believe that Coinbase might require to carry out substantial reductions in the cost base as retail trading dries up to stem the resulting cash burn.
Coinbase became the poster child for the equity market for the surge in digital currency prices last year, with the largest US cryptocurrency exchange seeing the value grow above $75 billion as Bitcoin was found to hit a record high. Since then, the company has been bogged down by a series of issues which also include a drop in revenues and trading volumes as the wider crypto market is enduring one of the worst selloffs in its history. As far as direct listing in April 2021 is concerned, Goldman Sachs is one of the Wall Street banks that had advised for it Coinbase.
Bloomberg News reports that as of Friday’s close, the value of the company was at less than $14 billion. The company has as many as 20 buying ratings, 5 sell recommendations, and 6 holds as per data compiled by Bloomberg. The share-price target of the average analyst sits at approximately $117, which is the lowest on its record but beyond 100% of where it is currently trading.
The competition that it faced increasingly from its other counterparts in the industry also weighed on the crypto exchange. At the beginning of this month, Binance.US stated that it is planning to offer zero-fee trading for the largest digital currency and that in the future it has plans to do away with the other fees. Coinbase made an announcement this month that it has plans to lay off 18% of the workforce in an attempt to curtail operational costs that magnified to a record $1.7 billion in the first quarter.
