Morgan Stanley Raises Coinbase Target but Keeps Equal Weight

Morgan Stanley raised its Coinbase stock price target by $8 to $258 on Oct. 9 and kept an Equal Weight rating. The new number implied 50% upside from the $172 previous close, the same session a more bullish shop cut its target by $45.

Michael Cyprys, who also covers Robinhood, Charles Schwab, and CME Group, moved the target inside an earnings preview for brokers, exchanges, and capital-markets infrastructure, not in a standalone upgrade. Shares still closed at $179.39, and the third-quarter report is estimated for Oct. 29, 2026.

An $8 Raise Inside a Sector Preview

Cyprys started Coinbase at Equal Weight with a $250 target in September. The Oct. 9 move is an $8 maintenance change on that call, a 3.2% lift in the target and no change in the rating.

The same preview also lifted targets on CME Group, Charles Schwab, LPL Financial, and MarketAxess, and it lowered targets on Nasdaq and MIAX. Coinbase was one name in a tape of exchange and brokerage stocks, grouped with venues that clear futures and route equities.

OTHER TARGETS IN THE SAME NOTE

• Raised: CME Group, Charles Schwab, LPL Financial, and MarketAxess sat in the same preview as Coinbase.
• Lowered: Nasdaq and MIAX had their targets cut in that group note.
• Unchanged rating: Coinbase stayed Equal Weight, the same tag Cyprys assigned when he opened coverage.

That packaging matters because a reader who only sees “target raised to $258” can miss the rating. Equal Weight is Morgan Stanley’s way of saying the stock should track its peers. The extra $8 does not move Coinbase into Overweight ahead of the print.

Citizens Cut $45 on the Same Outflows

Devin Ryan at Citizens JMP cut his Coinbase target to $280 from $325 on Oct. 9 and kept a Market Outperform rating. The $45 reduction is more than five times the size of Morgan Stanley’s raise, and it still left Ryan above Cyprys.

Ryan told clients that capital-markets, fintech, and digital-asset stocks had lagged the S&P 500 even after generally firm second-quarter results. He pointed to higher rates, AI-stock crowding, and more than $10 billion of outflows from financial-services ETFs, and he said those flows had hit valuations harder than 2027 earnings math. He also warned that third-quarter results across the group were likely to be uneven.

Bank of America analyst Craig Siegenthaler had moved the other way on Oct. 5, lifting his target to $203 from $174 and keeping a Buy, on the view that a September Fed rate increase would feed Coinbase’s stablecoin take. Higher policy rates can fatten USDC income and, in Ryan’s frame, they can also shove money out of financials ETFs. Both notes can be true at once, and they pull the multiple in opposite directions.

Friday Closed at $179.39 After a Weak Open

Coinbase stock had opened Oct. 9 at $174.80, after a $172.00 close on Oct. 8. The session ran from $171.65 to $183.61 and finished at $179.39, up $7.39, or 4.30%.

FRIDAY’S TAPE

• Close: $179.39, with after-hours trade at $180.00.
• Range and volume: $171.65 to $183.61 on 12.3 million shares, above the 9.0 million average.
• Size: Market value of $47.33 billion, trailing EPS of -$4.01, 52-week range of $139.11 to $402.16.

The $258 target was exactly 50% above Thursday’s $172 close. After Friday’s bounce it still sat well above the tape, and well below last year’s peak. The wide range and heavier volume fit a high-beta bounce in crypto-linked names, not a rerating that needed a Buy tag. Bitcoin’s rebound that day did more work than an $8 target tweak.

Q2 Left a $359 Million GAAP Loss

Coinbase reported second-quarter results on July 30. Total revenue was $1.22 billion, short of the $1.29 billion consensus, down 14% from the prior quarter and 19% from a year earlier. GAAP net loss was $359 million, or $1.36 a diluted share, against a $0.23 loss that analysts had modeled.

CFO Alesia Haas said the company generated $208 million of adjusted EBITDA, the 14th straight quarter in the black on that measure, and an adjusted net loss of $105 million after mark-to-market items. Transaction revenue was $599 million. Subscription and services were $555 million.

Q2 2026 PRINT

Haas said total market crypto spot volumes fell more than 20%, crypto market cap dropped by double digits, and volatility hit multi-year lows. Consumer volumes still beat the broader spot market, she said, even as they fell 24% on the quarter. The 10-Q ties the drop in consumer transaction revenue to a slide in consumer crypto spot trading volume, partly offset by derivatives and the launch of prediction markets, with Deribit, bought in August 2025, lifting institutional activity.

Adjusted expenses were $1 billion, down 9% from the prior quarter, after the May headcount cuts. Coinbase repaid a $1.3 billion convertible note due June 1, 2026, bought back 814,000 shares in the quarter, and had retired nearly 7 million shares for $1.2 billion year to date, with about $2 billion of authorization left. For the third quarter it guided subscription and services to $500 million to $580 million and adjusted expenses to $980 million to $1.08 billion. The only intra-quarter trading figure it gave in July was about $130 million of transaction revenue through July 26, with a warning not to run that number forward.

Nearly Half of Net Revenue Now Comes From Subscriptions

Co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong used the July call to argue the company is no longer a pure bet on bitcoin fees. Haas split the quarter roughly in half between trading and subscription lines, and the deck put subscription and services at 48% of net revenue.

Now, over time, our revenue has really decoupled from Bitcoin trading fees. And now 88% of our net revenue is from something other than Bitcoin spot trading.

Brian Armstrong, co-founder and CEO, Q2 2026 earnings presentation

That 88 percent of net revenue line is the diversification pitch Wall Street is trying to price. Stablecoin revenue was $292 million. Average USDC held in Coinbase products hit a record $20 billion, up 44% year over year, and the company said it still takes about 50% of USDC economics. Circle auto-renewal conditions had already been met, Armstrong said, so the partnership renews on the same terms. Blockchain rewards were $83 million. Interest and finance fees were $66 million. Paid Coinbase One subscribers hit a record in a down tape.

Trading share rose even as volumes shrank. Armstrong said Coinbase reached a record 10.3% of global crypto trading volume, the third straight quarter of share gains, and crypto derivatives volume was flat in a market down 12%. The firm had CFTC no-action relief to bring U.S. customers into a global perpetual pool. Prediction-market contracts and revenue doubled on the quarter, and the earnings deck put that line at more than $100 million annualized. At Citi’s Global TMT Conference in September, the company described four trading verticals, spot, derivatives, tokenized equities, and prediction markets, and 12 product lines that each generate more than $100 million a year.

Wells Fargo analyst Daniel Welden opened coverage on Oct. 2 at Equal Weight with a $200 target and warned that stronger activity may not fall through to revenue, citing consumer pricing pressure and mixed USDC trends. Haas had already flagged two misses inside the “steady” line: USDC on-platform deals that closed late in the quarter, and crypto prices that hit staking income. The subscription book is large. It still moves with rates and token prices, which is why an Equal Weight can sit next to $20 billion average USDC holdings without becoming a Buy.

Sports Event Contracts End in Michigan at Midnight

The fastest new line ran into a state gaming fight in the same week as the target shuffle. The Michigan Gaming Control Board said on Oct. 7 that Coinbase Financial Markets had agreed to halt sports-related event contracts for Michigan customers by 12:00 a.m. Eastern on Oct. 10, and to close remaining positions by that deadline.

Coinbase joining Robinhood and Kalshi in stepping back from these unlicensed sports contracts underscores Michigan’s commitment to enforcing its gaming laws. Operators are halting these activities because they face significant legal consequences for continuing to offer them in our state.

Henry Williams, executive director, Michigan Gaming Control Board

The stipulation covers sports contracts traded on KalshiEX and other designated contract markets. Michigan said it would hold off on enforcement if Coinbase complies, while related appeals sit at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit with Robinhood, Polymarket, and Kalshi. A court denied Coinbase’s bid for a preliminary injunction in August 2026. Attorney General Dana Nessel said the state wants all sports betting under licensed operators. The deal does not settle whether CFTC-registered event contracts are gambling under Michigan law.

Armstrong had called prediction markets one of the fastest-growing asset classes on the July call and said combo contracts were coming. Michigan is one state. The halt still lands two days before Cyprys’s $8 tweak, on a product the company has been using to show that the “everything exchange” is more than slides.

Wall Street Targets Now Run From $149 to $280

The Oct. 9 pairing, a small raise and a larger cut, sits on a wide map. Barclays analyst Benjamin Budish raised his target to $149 from $95 on Oct. 7 and kept Underweight, saying volumes improved in the third quarter off multi-year lows in June. He lifted his third-quarter estimates and stayed well below the Street on 2026 and later years. Goldman Sachs analyst James Yaro raised his Buy target to $244 from $219 the same day. Robert W. Baird’s Robert Oliver had moved Neutral to $205 from $130 on Sept. 28.

SELECTED COINBASE TARGETS

The average target is $224.29 with a Hold consensus, 20 Buy ratings, 13 Hold ratings, and 3 Sell ratings. The high is $330 and the low is $110. Cyprys sits above that average and still refuses to overweight the stock. Ryan sits higher and already walked $45 off his number. Budish can raise a target by $54 and still see the shares as expensive.

Barclays at least pointed to a third-quarter volume bounce after June. That is the print Cyprys’s $258, Ryan’s $280, and the $500 million to $580 million subscription guide will meet on Oct. 29. Until then, the $8 raise is a sector-multiple tick on a name that closed Friday at $179.39, with a Hold-level rating and a growth story that now includes a dark sports book in Michigan.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis for information only. It is not investment advice, a recommendation to buy or sell Coinbase Global Inc. (NASDAQ: COIN), or a forecast of third-quarter results or of bitcoin prices. Readers should consult a licensed financial adviser or broker-dealer before acting on analyst targets, earnings estimates, or any trade in the shares. Figures, ratings, and product status reflect company filings, exchange data, regulator statements, and analyst notes as of the dates given in the piece and can change when Coinbase reports or when firms revise their models.