Coinbase is ‘misunderstood’ — and some investors will get left behind, says CEO Brian Armstrong

After posting a slide in profits last week, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has a message for worried investors: People still don’t get the company.

Writing on X Wednesday, Armstrong said that while the Nasdaq-listed company’s stock has dropped in price by 36% over the past year, Coinbase has “never been in a stronger position.”

“I do think Coinbase is a bit of a misunderstood company,” wrote Armstrong. “Crypto is directly disrupting Wall Street, so it makes sense that some on Wall Street would misunderstand crypto/Coinbase.

“The smartest ones are going to embrace it. The laggards are going to be left behind.”

Armstrong’s defense comes just as Coinbase is caught between a rock and a hard place. Trading revenue has crashed alongside falling crypto prices, and a longer-term bet on becoming the underlying financial infrastructure for banks and institutions who “don’t understand the company.”

Plus, Wall Street analysts value companies based on their earnings, not just the potential they have or how much passion their management brings to the table. Right now, Coinbase’s numbers are bad. The company posted a quarterly loss in revenue and profits for the last three months of 2025 and its stock is down nearly 60% from the record it touched in July.

For Armstrong, however, the argument is that analysts are looking at all the wrong metrics.

Wall Street embrace

Armstrong said that Coinbase isn’t just a trading platform like some think: with regulators taking a softer approach to watchdogging the space, top US banks are now embracing crypto and increasingly working with Coinbase.

America’s biggest bank, JPMorgan Chase, last year signed a deal with Coinbase to allow customers to directly link their bank accounts to the US-based crypto exchange.

Coinbase also provides custody services to Wall Street giants like BlackRock, and has a contract with the US government to hold onto seized crypto.

Traditional financial institutions that aren’t open to crypto will get left behind, Armstrong said, just like what has happened in the past with previous technological disruptions.

“I think some of these people are just inherently skeptical of crypto because of incentives — their whole careers have been built in the traditional financial system,” he added.

“You don’t go to the cab companies and ask them what they think about Uber. You don’t go to the horse and buggy makers and ask them what they think about the automobile.”

Missing expectations?

Coinbase in its latest earnings underperformed in the eyes of Wall Street analysts. But those who don’t see the company’s potential have “underestimated” the company, claimed Armstrong.

“It’s not yet a consensus view amongst traditional analysts,” he wrote, adding that the firm was “underestimated” and that analysts should look at what other products the company is delivering.

In a note shared with DL News, Benchmark analyst Mark Palmer said that Coinbase is trading in line with crypto right now — dumping in price in October when Bitcoin sold off.

“The stock trades like levered crypto beta, moving tightly with digital asset prices, yet its underlying business is evolving into something more diversified and durable,” wrote Palmer.

He added that Coinbase’s institutional transaction revenue is up, pointing to bigger players using the company’s services.

While right now working with banks, Coinbase is also competing with them, with Armstrong in the past saying that he wants the platform to become “people’s primary financial account.”

Coinbase is currently at odds with banking executives, who want to ban stablecoin rewards.

Coinbase wants its yield-bearing stablecoin products to continue, which in turn could prove to be a bigger boon in the long-run for the business.

Mathew Di Salvo is a news correspondent with DL News. Got a tip? Email at [email protected].