Coinbase earned $2.5 billion in net revenue during 2021's fourth quarter

Quick Take

  • Crypto exchange Coinbase said it earned $2.5 billion in net revenue during Q4 of 2021.
  • Trading volumes were at an all-time high, reaching $547 billion in Q4. 

Crypto exchange Coinbase said it earned $2.5 billion in net revenue during Q4 of 2021 in a Thursday earnings release.

Among the other key metrics released: $840 million net income, $1.2 billion in adjusted EBITDA, and 11.4 million monthly transaction users or MTUs. Of the $547 billion in reported volume, $177 billion came from retail and $371 billion came from institutional traders.

"In 2021, millions of new users joined the cryptoeconomy through Coinbase; we generated $7.4 billion in net revenue – including $2.5 billion in the fourth quarter; we became the first publicly traded crypto asset trading platform; and we made substantial progress in building a best-in-class infrastructure to enable easy, safe and secure on-ramps and access into the global cryptoeconomy," the firm said in its shareholder letter

"As part of our strategy to serve as the primary crypto account and give our customers the greatest amount of choice, we want to list all legal assets. Over the course of 2021, we accelerated our asset listing efforts. In Q4, we added custody and trading support for 14 and 36 assets, respectively. We ended 2021 with support for 172 assets for custody and 139 assets for trading," the firm added. "We were proud to welcome or expand relationships with Anheuser-Busch, Brex, Enfusion and Franklin Templeton on the Coinbase institutional platform in Q4."

The details represent a jump from the 2021 third-quarter results. As The Block previously reported, Coinbase earned $1.31 billion in the third quarter, and brought in $234 billion in institutional and $93 million in retail trade volumes. 

Assets on platform rose from $255 billion in Q3 to $278 billion in Q4, according to the report. 

THE SCOOP

Keep up with the latest news, trends, charts and views on crypto and DeFi with a new biweekly newsletter from The Block's Frank Chaparro

By signing-up you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
By signing-up you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

As for monthly transacting users, Q4 saw 11.4 million compared to Q3's 7.4 million — an increase of 54%. Verified users grew to 89 million in Q4 as well, consistent with the upward trend seen in every quarter, The Block's Data Dashboard shows. 

The figures come ahead of Coinbase officially launches its non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace, which the firm has teased but doesn’t seem to have an official launch date. Hundreds of thousands of users already signed up for Coinbase’s NFT marketplace, which is set to rival giants like OpenSea — which has been plagued with a lawsuit and scores of user complaints.

This report will continue to be updated. 


© 2023 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

About Author

MK Manoylov has been a reporter for The Block since 2020 — joining just before bitcoin surpassed $20,000 for the first time. Since then, MK has written nearly 1,000 articles for the publication, covering any and all crypto news but with a penchant toward NFT, metaverse, web3 gaming, funding, crime, hack and crypto ecosystem stories. MK holds a graduate degree from New York University's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program (SHERP) and has also covered health topics for WebMD and Insider. You can follow MK on X @MManoylov and on LinkedIn.