Coinbase CFO Says Bitcoin Retreat Is ‘Just Another Day in Crypto’

(Bloomberg) — Coinbase Global Inc. Chief Financial Officer Alesia Haas defended the crypto exchange’s rising expenses and the volatility of the digital asset industry after the company’s stock fell despite reporting better-than-expected first quarter results.

“When we see high volumes, which we saw a sharp tick-up in volumes in March, we tend to then have a lagging effect to our customer support costs as we staff up those teams to address the queues that have resulted, so a little bit of that is spilling into Q2,” Haas said in an interview Friday with Bloomberg Television.

The largest US crypto exchange, she said, is also experiencing higher infrastructure costs and rising expenses related to the company’s USDC stablecoin rewards program, but noted that the company would be “growing prudently.”

“We learned our lessons hard in 2021 and 2022 when we grew too quickly,” she said. Coinbase shed 20% of its staff in January 2023, just months after a major layoff in June 2022.

Shares of San Francisco-based Coinbase fell 2.5% to $223.25 on Friday. After surging more than 50% in the first quarter, the stock slumped 23% in April. Bitcoin retreated 15% last month, after jumping 67% in the quarter.

Haas pointed to the growth of the company’s Base layer-2 blockchain, noting that there was social and gaming applications, as well as activity for controversial, joke-themed currencies known as memecoins.

“This is the creative content,” Haas said of memecoins. “It’s just part of the process.”

She also downplayed the decline of Bitcoin’s price in April following the cryptocurrency reaching a new high of more than $73,000 in March.

“It’s just another day in crypto,” Haas said. “It doesn’t mean that the look long-term doesn’t continue to be as rosy as it was last week.”

Coinbase reported Thursday that revenue more than doubled to $1.58 billion, topping the $1.32 billion average estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The company said that net income was $1.17 billion, including a benefit from an accounting change. It had a loss in the year-ago period.

–With assistance from Sonali Basak.

(Adds video interview and update with the final share price.)

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