Bank of America
The bank has lowered its rating of the crypto stock to Neutral from Buy and slashed its price target to $50 from $77. Shares of Coinbase are down nearly 30% since the start of the month.
"We think Coinbase (COIN) likely faces a number of new headwinds over the near/medium-term due to the recent collapse of rival crypto exchange FTX," Bank of America analysts wrote to clients.
There are several points that Bank of America analysts have captured about Coinbase. These include: decreased level trust in the crypto system as a whole, which will ultimately trading activity in general; there may not be as much general regulatory clarity regarding the crypto exchange as a whole; and contagion risk in terms of its disconnection from FTX.
"The analyst team sees three potential headwinds: Dampened trading activity thanks to weaker confidence in crypto, delayed regulatory clarity and the possibility that contagion leads to an even wider fallout for the industry," analysts from Bank of America wrote in a statement.
According to Bank of America analysts, "As a result, we downgrade COIN to Neutral from Buy and reduce our estimates. We feel confident that COIN is not 'another FTX' (only $15M of deposits on FTX platform per a Coinbase blog post and $5B of cash on hand as of 9/30), but that does not make them immune from the broader fallout within the crypto ecosystem."
The bank had previously been a Coinbase bull before the FTX chaos. Back in January, Bank of America gave the stock a Buy rating and set a $340 price target (the stock was trading above $230 at the time).
Bank of America still firmly asserts, however, that Coinbase is "not another FTX," since it has $5 billion worth of cash and $15 million worth of deposits through the FTX platform. In a grander scheme, from Bank of America's perspective, market share earnings could be obtained by Coinbase, since it placed $15 million worth of market share from FTX.
- https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/11/18/crypto-exchange-coinbase-loses-a-wall-street-bull-on-ftx-fallout/
- https://news.yahoo.com/bofa-coinbase-stock-downgrade-ftx-153157534.html
- https://www.marketwatch.com/story/coinbase-isnt-another-ftx-but-its-stock-faces-growing-risks-bank-of-america-warns-in-downgrade-11668786046
- https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/coinbase-stock-downgrade-ftx-crypto-crash-coin-regulatory-headwinds-2022-11
- https://www.investing.com/news/cryptocurrency-news/bank-of-america-downgrades-coinbase-stock-after-ftx-collapse-432SI-2947976