Bitcoin
Coinbase CFO Says Bitcoin Withdrawal Is “Just Another Day in Crypto”
(Bloomberg) — Alesia Haas, chief financial officer at Coinbase Global Inc., defended the cryptocurrency exchange’s rising expenses and volatility in the digital asset industry after the company’s shares fell despite reporting better-than-expected results in the first trimester.
“When we see high volumes, which we saw a strong increase in volumes in March, we tend to have a delayed effect on our customer support costs as we recruit those teams to resolve the resulting queues, so some of that is shifting. spreading into the second quarter,” Haas said in an interview Friday with Bloomberg Television.
The largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, she said, is also facing 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 a lot in 2021 and 2022 when we grew really fast,” she said. Coinbase laid off 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 rising more than 50% in the first quarter, shares fell 23% in April. Bitcoin fell 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 were social and gaming applications as well as activity for controversial and joke-themed coins known as memecoins.
“This is creative content,” Haas said of memecoins. “It’s just part of the process.”
She also downplayed Bitcoin’s price decline in April after the cryptocurrency reached a new high of more than $73,000 in March.
“It’s just another day in crypto,” Haas said. “That doesn’t mean the long-term outlook doesn’t remain as bullish as it was last week.”
Coinbase reported on Thursday that revenue more than doubled to $1.58 billion, beating the $1.32 billion average estimate from analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The company said net income was $1.17 billion, including the benefit of an accounting change. It had a loss in the period of the previous year.
–With assistance from Sonali Basak.
(Adds video interview and final share price update.)
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