As of April 13, 2026, East Eight Time, Coinbase (COIN)'s stock price is still about 60% lower than the historical high of $445 set in July 2025. After a roughly 26% decline from the peak in the first quarter of this year, it has been viewed by some institutions as having completed a round of risk clearance. The recent report from investment bank William Blair evaluates the relationship between Coinbase's stock price and the rising market share of USDC. On one hand, it believes that the weakness in short-term trading and performance data has been fully reflected in the previous declines. On the other hand, it points out that USDC's market share has increased from about 21% to around 27% (this data is to be verified), which opens up greater imagination for Coinbase's medium to long-term profit elasticity and valuation recovery. The mismatch between the deeper stock price correction and potential fundamental upside, combined with the incremental gains brought by USDC's expansion, constitutes the current market's core competitive framework around Coinbase and USDC.

Stock Price Halved by 60%: Is Risk Clearance Complete?

Recently, Coinbase's trend has been volatile. Currently, the stock price is about 60% lower than the historical high of $445 set in July 2025, indicating that although the market experienced an upswing under the macro narratives of halving and institutional entrants, the overall valuation has yet to return to previous peak ranges. This long-term retreat has brought greater elasticity for any future fundamental improvement, becoming an important contextual anchor for discussing "risk clearance" in the report.

From a shorter-term perspective, the market data cited by William Blair shows that Coinbase's stock price fell about 26% from its peak in the first quarter, with this rapid decline seen as a concentrated correction of previous gains, and having largely completed the clearance of short-term risk. Multiple cryptocurrency media have cited opinions that "the weak performance in the first quarter has already been priced in, with limited impact on market sentiment", meaning that negative surprises in performance and trading data have already been factored into prices, and the marginal impact of new negative news is decreasing.

The early digestion of sentiment means that the current stock price reflects more a pessimistic expectation of slowed growth and a sluggish trading environment for the next few quarters, rather than a systematic denial of the business model itself. In other words, the valuation implicitly assumes that "weakness will persist." Whether this assumption aligns with Coinbase's actual progress in areas such as compliant derivatives, custody, and collaboration with USDC is becoming the focus for institutions to reassess their pricing logic. If the speed of business expansion and recovery in profitability exceeds current market consensus, there is room for the existing valuation and stock price levels to be repriced.

USDC Market Share Recovery: From 21%

The report also focuses on the trend of USDC market share recovery. According to unofficial data cited in the brief, the overall market share of USDC has increased from about 21% to about 27%. This change is seen as a significant incremental source under the partnership between Circle and Coinbase. It is important to emphasize that this 27% market share data is marked as "to be verified", lacking precise time points and official calibration support, and can only serve as directional reference rather than a precise statistical conclusion.

In the competitive landscape with USDT, USDC has continuously built a differentiated moat through its strong compliance attributes and institutional friendliness: its regulatory disclosure, asset custody arrangements, and connections with traditional financial institutions are closer, leading to higher penetration in US-based institutions, compliant trading platforms, and custody scenarios. In contrast, although USDT has an absolute size advantage in global retail and some emerging markets, USDC has higher acceptability and expansion potential in large institutional scenarios under strict regulatory frameworks.

The expansion of USDC has an amplifying effect on the revenue sharing mechanism and profit elasticity between Coinbase and Circle. As the issuance scale and trading use cases of USDC increase, both companies can obtain higher shares from interest income, trading and clearing fees, and related ecological services (such as payment and cross-border settlement), thereby reducing the company's dependence on pure trading volume cycles. The report is based on this structural change, believing that the upward direction of USDC market share is significantly undervalued for Coinbase's medium to long-term value.

However, due to the lack of precise timelines and authoritative statistical standards, the current trajectory of USDC increasing from 21% to 27% still contains information noise and sample calibration differences. Investors need to be particularly cautious about data sources and update frequencies when using this data to judge growth rates, to avoid treating not fully verified figures as conclusions, which could lead to overly optimistic or excessively fearful biases in timing.

All-in-One Platform Layout: Derivatives and Staking

Regarding the exchange business itself, Coinbase has been continuously promoting the all-in-one platform strategy in recent quarters, accelerating the layout of derivatives, staking, and custody as diverse revenue sources in addition to traditional spot trading. The brief indicates that Coinbase has gradually ramped up its futures and perpetual contract business through offshore and compliant structures, and has established a service system for on-chain staking and custody of mainstream public chain assets, providing a comprehensive cryptocurrency asset management solution for institutions and high-net-worth users.

As spot trading volume weakens, the hedging effect of these new business lines becomes increasingly evident. On one hand, derivative fees tend to maintain high activity even in volatile or declining markets, especially with consistent demand for hedging and speculative needs, allowing the exchange to generate relatively stable fee income from futures and perpetual contracts when spot transaction volumes shrink. On the other hand, staking and custody businesses charge fees based on managed scale, which are relatively less dependent on short-term price fluctuations, thus maintaining strong profitability resilience in periods where overall market value declines but positions do not significantly reduce.

The layout of multiple business lines directly reduces Coinbase's sensitivity to a single trading cycle, allowing it to gradually shift from a "high beta trading platform" to a "diversified cryptocurrency financial infrastructure". This change in revenue structure provides greater sustainability and elasticity for valuation models: even when trading volumes are at the bottom of the cycle, as long as USDC, custody, and derivatives businesses maintain growth, overall performance fluctuations will not dramatically swing in tandem with the highs and lows of spot trading, providing fundamental logic support for higher valuation multiples.

For institutional funds, compliant derivatives and custody products themselves represent the medium to long-term growth space. As more traditional asset management institutions and corporate funds enter the market, their demand for risk hedging, compliant custody, and yield enhancement tools continues to rise. Coinbase's first-mover advantage in this area, along with its reserve of regulatory licenses, positions it to capture larger scales of institutional allocations in the next cycle, thereby converting its current diversified business layout into substantial profits and valuation premiums.

Soft Trading in the First Quarter: Short-term Pressure

From the latest report and media excerpts, it has become quite clear that Coinbase's trading and performance in the first quarter is overall weak. Although the brief did not provide specific transaction volumes and revenue data for each business line in the first quarter of 2026, the market consensus is that, against a backdrop of price volatility and some asset pullbacks, overall trading activity on the platform is not as active as in the previous upward phase, leading to slowed revenue growth and increased pressure on profits.

However, institutions like William Blair emphasize that "the weak performance in the first quarter has already been priced in, with limited impact on market sentiment", reflecting that much of the negative impact from information has already been absorbed in the earlier approximately 26% drop in stock price. The marginal effects of new bad news are decreasing, and the focus of the market is shifting from "how bad is the data" to "to what extent will it be seen as a temporary bottom." This shift in expectation is a key part of the risk clearance logic.

From Wall Street, there has been an overall adjustment down in Coinbase's performance and growth expectations, but the report deliberately avoids providing specific percentage points or target price ranges to avoid generating precise but unfounded numbers when the data is not yet fully clarified. In pricing, the expectation adjustment itself is a prerequisite for valuation reshaping: when analysts and investors transition from overly optimistic to relatively conservative assumptions, as long as actual performance does not continue to worsen, the stock price has room to "recover from low expectations."

Combining the stock price retreat and changes in transaction activity, it can be inferred that short-term sell pressure has weakened, and stocks are beginning to gradually settle. After the previous bullish funds were forced out during the rapid decline, the holding structure has shifted to funds with higher risk tolerance and longer holding cycles, and the marginal decline in turnover is beneficial for price stabilization at critical ranges. However, this process does not mean an immediate reversal; it is more like accumulating energy for the next trend direction.

Low Probability Long Bear: How Institutions Bet

The market judgment quoted in the brief believes that "the long-term continued stagnation of the crypto market is a low probability event", which in fact constitutes the central hypothesis for current institutional bets. Mainstream views generally focus on several key variables: first, the impact of Bitcoin halving and subsequent supply contraction on medium to long-term price and sentiment support; second, the turning point in the global macro interest rate cycle—once entering a rate cut or maintaining a low interest rate environment, the overall valuation level of risk assets is expected to rise; third, the gradual clarification of regulatory frameworks in major jurisdictions, clearing obstacles for substantial institutional participation.

Within this expectation framework, Coinbase, as a compliance leader in the US and partner to USDC issuers, possesses both β and α attributes: on one hand, its revenue and profits are highly sensitive to the entire cryptocurrency market cap and trading activity, potentially amplifying the systemic gains brought by overall industry recovery; on the other hand, USDC expansion, diversified business lines, and a compliant moat provide structural growth potential that exceeds industry averages, positioning it to offer additional excess return potential compared to "pure trading platforms."

If the aforementioned cyclical recovery paths come to fruition, the current deep pullback of Coinbase's stock price, which is still approximately 60% lower than historical highs, will provide asymmetric upside opportunities for medium to long-term funds. Once trading volumes warm up, USDC market share continues to confirm an upward trend, and the scale of institutional derivatives and custody expands, the market may need to reassess this asset with new profit assumptions and risk premiums, thus driving both valuation and stock price upward in sync. For institutions betting on recovery, this "low probability long bear" judgment is the logical foundation for proactive positioning during the risk clearance phase.

The Next Stop from Risk Clearance to Valuation Restructuring

In summary, Coinbase's current investment narrative is woven from three main lines: risk clearance on the stock price level, allowing the previous trading and performance weaknesses to be concentrated and released in price; the elevation of USDC market share, providing a medium to long-term growth engine for revenue sharing and profit elasticity with Circle; and diversified business lines such as derivatives, staking, and custody, constructing a more robust profit base amid trading cycle fluctuations. These three collectively form the basic support for the market to reassess its valuation center.

At the same time, the contradictions between short-term trading weakness and long-cycle recovery expectations is currently the point of greatest divergence among investors: pessimists focus on trading sluggishness, profit pressure, and regulatory uncertainty, while optimists bet on the macro interest rate turning point, improvements in supply and demand patterns after halving, and accelerating institutionalization. In this tug-of-war process, those who can more accurately grasp the rhythm of USDC's expansion, the recovery slope of platform trading volume, and the progress of regulatory implementation are more likely to gain an advantage in anticipation of valuation restructuring.

For investors, a relatively clear tracking framework can be established:
● First, USDC growth rate and market share changes—pay attention to authoritative data sources for updates on USDC circulation size and share to verify whether the current narrative of "elevating from 21% to 27%" continues or is revised;
● Second, trading volume and revenue recovery status—observe the rhythm of recovery in spot and derivative transactions in subsequent quarters, and the hedging effect of diverse businesses on overall revenue fluctuations;
● Third, regulatory and institutional entry progress—follow compliance implementation and large institution product rollout in major jurisdictions to assess Coinbase's relative benefits in the compliant ecosystem.

Finally, it is important to remind once again that there are gaps in data and information to be verified in this analysis, especially regarding the precise number for USDC market share, the timeline of its evolution, and the specific extent of Wall Street's downgrades in Coinbase's target price and profit expectations, which have not been detailed. Investors should avoid treating this information as established facts, maintain sufficient safety margins in positioning and timing, and minimize overly optimistic or overly pessimistic reactions due to incomplete data or measurement deviations.

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