Published on: 2025-11-19
Over the past several weeks, Bitcoin has plunged again, falling nearly 30% from its October high above $126,000 to trade around the low $90,000s, even dipping briefly below $90,000.
That sharp decline has erased more than $1 trillion in value across the crypto market, as traders rotate out of speculative risk.
Coinbase Stock (COIN) has followed suit. The stock is now trading near $264, down big from its recent highs, under pressure as crypto sentiment sours.
For active traders, the critical questions become: how closely is COIN (Coinbase Stock) aligned with Bitcoin right now, where does it decouple, and which macro or technical levels could drive a reversal or further downside.
Bitcoin first broke above $100,000 in late 2024, then in 2025 swung from a ~38% drawdown between February and mid-April, to a ~40% rally by late May, before pushing to an all-time high above $126,000 on 6 October.
Since then, it has given back all of its year’s gains; YTD performance is roughly flat to slightly negative, with a 20–30% drawdown from the high.
The latest slide has been driven by a mix of factors:
A broad risk-off in global equities and AI names.
The Fed holding off on deeper cuts, keeping the cost of capital elevated.
Heavy outflows from spot Bitcoin ETFs as hot money takes profits.
That macro impulse hits both BTC and COIN at the same time.
Coinbase: now a crypto proxy inside the S&P 500
Coinbase’s share price exploded after the 2024 US election and subsequent crypto rally, with the stock not only recovering from its 2022 crash but breaking above its original all-time high around $357 in June 2025.
It joined the S&P 500 in May 2025, putting crypto beta directly into a major benchmark.
Despite that, today COIN trades about 37-40% below its 52-week high of $419.78, even though it’s still modestly positive year-to-date.
That reflects how brutal downside can be when crypto volatility spikes and equity investors start de-risking.
Independent research and bank coverage agree that Coinbase is meaningfully tethered to Bitcoin:
A major Hong Kong broker estimates that Coinbase’s weekly returns have shown about a 59% correlation with BTC/USD since its IPO in 2021.
Another study notes that over the last five years, Coinbase’s correlation with both the S&P 500 and Bitcoin sits in the 0.53-0.54 range, high enough to matter, but far from 1.0.
In plain terms: when Bitcoin trends up, Coinbase usually goes up too, and often more. But there are plenty of weeks when COIN underperforms or even moves the other way because it’s also a regulated, fee-dependent, cost-heavy business.
When Bitcoin is trending, the linkage tightens:
Analysts highlight periods like late 2024, when Bitcoin’s climb above $40,000 directly pushed Coinbase’s transaction revenue up to around $1.56 billion, as trading volumes surged.
In 2024-25, spot Bitcoin ETFs and Ethereum ETFs pulled tens of billions into the space, with Coinbase acting as custodian for many of them, further hard-wiring COIN to BTC flows.
In these environments, Coinbase behaves like a high-beta Bitcoin derivative, as every uptick in BTC sharpens retail and institutional trading activity, boosting Coinbase’s top line.
The downside can be even more striking. In 2022, when Bitcoin fell more than 65%, Coinbase stock plunged about 86% from its highs as trading volumes evaporated and investors priced in regulatory and earnings risk.
Even in 2025, we’ve seen patches when Bitcoin makes a new high, but Coinbase lags because of earnings misses (e.g., Q1 2025) or concern that fee rates will compress as competition and regulation tighten.
So the correlation is directionally strong, but amplitude and timing are very different.
Over the last decade, Bitcoin has outperformed every major asset class, with estimated cumulative gains around 27,000% from 2015 to 2025. But that comes with violent swings:
Drawdowns of 50–80% have been common.
In 2025 alone, BTC saw a ~38% drop, then a ~40% rebound, and then a fresh 20–30% slide from the October peak.
This is why macro desks still treat Bitcoin as one of the purest risk-on assets in the market.
Coinbase adds another layer of volatility on top of that.
An older estimate put COIN’s beta at roughly 3.7 (i.e., a 10 % move in BTC could translate to about a 37 % move in COIN), but as at end year 2025 the commonly reported beta is closer to ~2.5, meaning COIN would move about 2.5 × the BTC move under similar conditions.
The logic is straightforward:
When BTC rises, trading volumes, new users and derivatives activity tend to explode.
Coinbase’s revenue is still heavily skewed to transactions, so earnings expand faster than BTC itself.
Equity investors then put a growth multiple on those elevated earnings, creating a double-leveraged effect.
On the downside, that leverage works in reverse: volumes dry up, margins compress, and equity holders worry about regulatory or competitive shocks.
Both Bitcoin and Coinbase are tightly linked to global liquidity:
Coinbase’s own research shows Bitcoin strongly tracking a “liquidity gauge” with correlations around 0.9 over look-back windows from one month to three years.
The CMBI report notes that when the Fed embarked on easing (2019–21), Bitcoin rose over 500%, and the new cutting cycle that started in September 2024 is expected to support both crypto assets and Coinbase.
When rate-cut expectations get pushed out, speculative assets re-price, and both BTC and COIN feel it, as we’ve seen during the latest global sell-off.
Another shared driver is the policy landscape:
The approval of spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs in 2024, and Coinbase’s role as custodian for most of them, tied its fortunes even more closely to mainstream adoption of BTC.
The current U.S. administration’s pro-crypto tilt and legislation like the GENIUS Act have boosted stablecoin and derivatives activity on Coinbase, contributing to strong Q3 2025 numbers.
When a tweet about tariffs or a surprise regulatory headline hits, Bitcoin and crypto stocks usually move in the same minute.
Bitcoin’s “value” is mostly about its capped supply, network security, and adoption as a store of value or collateral. Coinbase, by contrast, is a cash-flow-generating platform with several levers that don’t depend directly on BTC’s day-to-day price:
In 2023, subscriptions and services (staking, stablecoins, custody, interest income) were already ~45% of total revenue, up from single-digit levels a few years before.
By 2025, that mix has continued to climb, with stablecoin revenue alone contributing hundreds of millions per quarter as USDC’s market cap and yields grew.
That diversification means not all of Coinbase’s earnings vanish if BTC trades sideways for a while.
Fundamentally, Coinbase is now putting up real profit in volatile markets:
Q3 2025 revenue came in around $1.9 billion, up 58% year-on-year, with transaction revenue hitting roughly $1 billion.
Net income for the quarter was about $433 million, well ahead of expectations.
Those numbers show that as long as volatility and volumes stay elevated, Coinbase can generate substantial earnings even if BTC is below its highs.
Equity holders care about valuation, not just price direction:
A 2024 bank model valued Coinbase at about $250 per share, using a sum-of-the-parts approach and assigning high multiples to its transaction and subscription businesses.
More recently, a major analyst upgrade in late 2025 lifted a price target to $417, arguing that Coinbase’s growing institutional and subscription revenue base justifies a premium multiple as the crypto market matures.
At today’s ~$261, COIN is only slightly above that older $250 “fair value” anchor, but well below the newer bullish targets, even though Bitcoin itself is still far off its October high.
That gap is where idiosyncratic equity risk and opportunity live. BTC doesn’t have earnings revisions; Coinbase does.
On a higher timeframe, Bitcoin has carved out a wide range:
Resistance: The band from $115,000–$126,000 marks the recent all-time high region and a clear supply zone where ETF inflows stalled and macro worries kicked in.
Current area: Around the low $90,000s, price has retraced roughly 25–30% from the top and is testing the upper edge of prior consolidation from earlier in the year.
Support: Many traders will eye the $80,000–$85,000 band as the first “bigger picture” demand area, where previous pauses and volume clusters sat during the climb to six-figure prices.
On momentum tools like RSI and MACD, weekly readings have been rolling off prior overbought levels, which fits the pattern of a cooling trend rather than a confirmed long-term top.
Traders will watch whether any rebound from the 80-90k zone shows higher lows or fails back under $80,000.
For Coinbase, the structure looks like a classic high-beta growth name tied to a cyclical theme:
| Level | Price Range | Significance |
|---|---|---|
| Major Resistance | $360–$420 | Includes 2021 IPO high (~$357) and 2025 52-week high (~$420); reclaiming this is key for a fresh breakout. |
| Current Zone | ~$260 | Near old bank “fair value” (~$250) and mid-point of post-2023 recovery. |
| Support 1 | $250 | Prior breakout level; dropping below could trigger deeper mean reversion. |
| Support 2 | $200–$210 | Psychological round number and likely dip-buying zone for medium-term investors. |
Psychological round number and likely dip-buying zone for medium-term investors.
From a trend standpoint, COIN is still in a broad uptrend from the 2022 lows near $50, with a sequence of higher highs and higher lows on the weekly chart.
But the latest rejection from the $400+ area and the pullback to the mid-$200s means it’s now in a corrective phase that will likely track Bitcoin’s ability (or failure) to stabilize above $80,000.
Traders watching RSI/MACD on the daily will recognise the usual picture: momentum peaked into the $400 zone, then rolled over; a strong bounce from around $250 with improving momentum would be the first sign that bulls are re-asserting control.
Yes, coinbase generally moves with Bitcoin, but not perfectly. Since its IPO, its weekly returns have a correlation of about 0.59 with BTC, so short-term factors like earnings, regulation, or index flows can cause divergence.
Yes, coinbase is often more volatile than Bitcoin. With operating leverage and equity risk, its stock can swing much more than BTC itself.
For long-term exposure, Bitcoin is the pure asset, while Coinbase adds potential earnings, dividends, and index inclusion but also regulatory and competitive risks. The stock tends to amplify Bitcoin’s moves.
Lower interest rates and Fed easing usually boost both Bitcoin and Coinbase. Coinbase benefits from higher crypto prices and increased trading volumes.
Coinbase can partly decouple from Bitcoin if crypto prices stagnate. Growth in subscriptions, stablecoins, custody, and interest income makes it less reliant on spot trading.
Whether Coinbase is overvalued compared with Bitcoin depends on expectations. Analysts’ targets range widely, reflecting the stock’s potential to grow earnings faster than crypto.
Bitcoin rallies often lift Coinbase, but new highs for the stock are not automatic. Fee pressure, competition, regulation, and revenue mix all matter.
Coinbase is still, in many ways, a leveraged expression of Bitcoin. The data is clear: a solid positive correlation in returns, high beta to crypto moves, and earnings that surge when BTC volatility and volumes spike.
But it’s not just a proxy token. Coinbase now sits inside the S&P 500, runs a fast-growing subscription and services book, and generates real profits even when Bitcoin is below its highs.
Macro liquidity, Fed policy and regulation drive both assets, yet only Coinbase has analysts adjusting earnings models and price targets every quarter.
For traders, the key is to treat Bitcoin as the underlying macro asset and Coinbase as a high-beta, idiosyncratic equity layered on top. Watch BTC’s big levels and COIN’s bands together.
When they line up with improving momentum and friendlier macro, that’s when the crypto-equity trade usually offers the cleanest reward-to-risk.
Disclaimer: This material is for general information purposes only and is not intended as (and should not be considered to be) financial, investment or other advice on which reliance should be placed. No opinion given in the material constitutes a recommendation by EBC or the author that any particular investment, security, transaction or investment strategy is suitable for any specific person.
