DA Davidson Raises Coinbase Price Target to $440 From $195 After Q1 Earnings

Crypto exchange Coinbase’s blowout Q1 earnings results led investment bank DA Davidson to up its price target for the company's soon-to-be-direct-listed shares by 125%.

Rating COIN a “buy,” Davidson raised the exchange's share price target from $195 to $440, which is a 20x multiple of its expected 2021 revenue. The analysts said the company’s Q1 performance was proof the crypto exchange giant could generate “healthy margins” despite the uncertainty of the bitcoin markets. 

Davidson estimates Coinbase will have 205.6 million shares outstanding. While that share count may change, it "does imply a $90 billion market cap,” said Gil Luria, head of institutional research at Davidson. 

Coinbase’s $1.8 billion in reported revenue beat Davidson’s estimate of $614 million. Trading volumes were also higher than Davidson expected and expenses were lower than predicted. 

“Coinbase reported preliminary 1Q21 results prior to [its] direct listing that were multiples higher than our estimates on both the top and bottom lines,” the note said. “We continue to believe COIN's product experience and best-in-class compliance and regulatory controls should provide a defensible moat.”

Read more: Riding Bitcoin Surge, Coinbase Active Users Grew by 117% in Q1 2021; Revenue Tops $1.8B

Davidson sees Coinbase posting quarterly revenue of at least $800 million for each remaining quarter of the year and full-year revenue of $4.4 billion. 

Coinbase’s Q1 numbers did point to a company that’s seeing revenue growth off the rise of bitcoin. Its active users doubled quarter over quarter while revenue tripled over the same time period. 

James Friedman, senior fintech research analyst at Susquehanna International Group, told CoinDesk after the company's earnings call the results are a sign of revenue per user increasing, which was caused by bitcoin’s meteoric Q1 price rise.