Coinbase CEO says trading revenue has fallen to ‘roughly half’ what it was last year

The CEO of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, has revealed that the exchange’s trading gross has declined by astir 50% oregon much erstwhile compared to past year, according to a Dec. 7 study from Bloomberg.

Armstrong made the connection arsenic portion of an interrogation with the David Rubenstein Show. When asked astir the exchange’s revenue, helium stated that the institution did $7 cardinal successful gross and $4 cardinal successful net successful 2021, but “it’s looking, you know, astir about fractional that oregon less” successful 2022.

Bloomberg said that a spokesperson for Coinbase aboriginal clarified that 2022 revenue, not earnings, was projected to beryllium little than fractional what it was successful 2021.

Coinbase had antecedently stated successful a missive to investors that it expected to station a astir $500 cardinal nonaccomplishment successful adjusted EBITDA for 2022. Adjusted EBITDA is an net metric that doesn’t see interest, taxes, depreciation oregon amortization.

In the interview, Armstrong was asked if helium thinks the FTX bankruptcy volition wounded the crypto industry. He admitted that it is “a spot of a achromatic people for the industry” but argued that what happened is not precise antithetic from accepted fiscal scandals similar Bernie Madoff and Enron.

Armstrong besides said that helium thought regularisation “won’t beryllium a atrocious thing” and that the FTX illness would “serve arsenic a wakeup call” that would pb to clearer regulations successful the U.S.

When asked astir which regulatory assemblage should person authorization implicit crypto exchanges, the Coinbase CEO emphasized that antithetic cryptocurrencies person antithetic usage cases, and they don’t each autumn into a azygous category, truthful antithetic cryptocurrencies volition person to beryllium regulated by antithetic agencies.

2022 has been a pugnacious twelvemonth for crypto exchanges, including Coinbase. In May, the TerraUSD (TUSD) stablecoin lost its peg to the U.S. dollar, causing fearfulness to dispersed done the market. In July, crypto lender Celsius filed for bankruptcy aft being incapable to process withdrawals partially owed to the fallout from the TUSD collapse.

Related: Crypto volition beryllium regulated arsenic securities — ICE brag and Senator Warren

Just arsenic the crypto marketplace was opening to recover, the second-largest centralized crypto exchange, FTX, had a liquidity situation and was unable to process withdrawals. It aboriginal began bankruptcy proceedings arsenic well.

As a effect of these events and different factors, crypto trading enactment has plunged implicit the people of the year, and Coinbase has reported a 44% diminution successful gross successful the 3rd 4th alone.