Bernstein cut its Coinbase price target to $250 from $330 on Monday 26 October and now expects the exchange to lose money in 2026, while keeping its Outperform rating on Coinbase (COIN), Robinhood (HOOD) and Circle (CRCL) a day before Robinhood opens the crypto earnings week. According to The Block’s account of the note, analysts Gautam Chhugani, Mahika Sapra and Sanskar Chindalia now forecast a 2026 loss of $2.60 per share for Coinbase, against a $5.97 profit in their previous model, on revenue cut by about 32% to $5.5 billion.
The reason is spelled out in one line quoted by The Block: “We no longer assume any bullish crypto price action in our estimates.” What the broker now models instead is a business built on prediction markets, derivatives and stablecoins. For Coinbase, it sees prediction markets and derivatives bringing in about $2 billion of revenue by 2028. For Robinhood, prediction markets alone would be worth $1.7 billion in 2028, slightly more than the $1.6 billion it expects from crypto.
The full note is for Bernstein’s clients and has not been published. The target changes are confirmed by MT Newswires, in an item carried by MarketScreener at 06:38 EDT (10:38 UTC), and by TokenPost. The loss forecast, the revenue figures and the quarterly estimates below come only from The Block’s report. All the targets are Bernstein’s, not Coindaro’s, and none of this is a recommendation to buy or sell.
Bernstein’s Coinbase price target falls to $250, with a loss forecast for 2026
A cut of $80 is large, but the earnings line moved more. Bernstein’s previous model had Coinbase earning $5.97 a share this year. The new one has the company in the red, because the trading fees that used to carry Coinbase’s results are no longer expected to grow.
Bernstein expects Coinbase’s spot trading volume in the third quarter to stay flat at about $150 billion, The Block reported. Stablecoin revenue, mostly Coinbase’s share of the interest earned on the reserves behind USDC, is named as the biggest growth factor. The exchange’s derivatives arm and its prediction-market products would grow from about $600 million of revenue earlier this year to about $2 billion by 2028, on the analysts’ numbers.
At the time of The Block’s report, published at 16:36 UTC on Monday, Coinbase shares traded just above $162, down more than 31% since 1 January. MT Newswires also listed other recent changes from the brokers who follow the stock: Needham raised its target to $205 from $200 on 21 October, and Autonomous Research lowered its target to $130 from $135 on 23 October. For how the exchange itself works, its fees and its licences, see our Coinbase review.
Prediction markets and derivatives replace spot trading in the forecasts
Robinhood is where the shift is clearest. Bernstein kept its $160 target and expects event contract volume, the yes-or-no contracts Robinhood offers on sports, economic data and other outcomes, to rise 21% from the previous quarter to about 16.4 billion contracts in the third quarter. Crypto trading across the Robinhood app and Bitstamp, the exchange it bought, would recover to about $50 billion, still 38% below the third quarter of 2025, according to The Block.
Robinhood’s own monthly releases cover two of the quarter’s three months. They show 6.1 billion event contracts traded in July, twenty times July 2025 (release of 12 August), and 4.7 billion in August, down 23% from July (release of 10 September). Full September figures will only come with the results. For Bernstein’s 16.4 billion to hold, September alone would need about 5.6 billion contracts, more than either summer month.
Crypto went the other way. Robinhood’s crypto notional volume was $10.9 billion in July, 62% lower than a year earlier, then $17.5 billion in August, still 38% below August 2025. In both months Bitstamp handled more of it than the Robinhood app: $6.6 billion against $4.3 billion in July, $10.1 billion against $7.4 billion in August. The app’s own volume was down 74% and 46% from a year earlier. Bernstein’s $50 billion for the quarter implies a September of about $21.6 billion, the busiest month of the three.
The Block also reported that Robinhood’s own blockchain, launched in July, handled about $90 billion of transaction volume and $50 million in fees in the third quarter, mostly from memecoin trading. That matches the order of magnitude ARK Invest gave last week, when it said Robinhood Chain out-earned Ethereum in the quarter, $51 million to $41 million. In the same report, Robinhood shares stood at $93.37, about 17.5% lower for the year.
Circle: a higher target despite less USDC
Circle is the only one of the three whose target went up, to $145 from $140, “based on Arc token presales and reserve yield outlook”, as The Block summed up the note. Bernstein expects third-quarter revenue to edge up to about $770 million even though reserve income fell. USDC in circulation dropped to about $73 billion from $77 billion in the second quarter, the analysts noted, and lower rates shrink what Circle earns on each dollar it holds.
Arc, Circle’s own blockchain, is the new element in the model. Circle raised $222 million in an Arc token presale at a $3 billion fully diluted valuation, led by a16z with BlackRock, Apollo and ICE taking part, The Block reported on 11 May. Bernstein sees transaction fees and validator staking on Arc as possible future revenue. At the time of The Block’s Bernstein report, CRCL traded around $80.50, about 1.5% higher for the year, the only one of the three stocks in positive territory. How Circle earns its money, and what backs USDC, is set out in our Circle project page.
| Stock | Bernstein target, 30 March 2026 | Bernstein target, 26 October 2026 | Share price cited by The Block, 26 Oct (report at 16:36 UTC) | Change since 1 January |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coinbase (COIN) | $330 (from $440) | $250 | just above $162 | down more than 31% |
| Robinhood (HOOD) | $130 (from $160) | $160 (unchanged) | $93.37 | down about 17.5% |
| Circle (CRCL) | not given in CoinDesk’s report | $145 (from $140) | about $80.50 | up about 1.5% |
Sources: CoinDesk for 30 March, The Block and MT Newswires for 26 October. Price targets are Bernstein’s forecasts, not Coindaro’s.
From “big businesses at big discounts” to no price rally assumed
Bernstein still rates all three stocks Outperform, as it already rated Coinbase and Robinhood in March. The reasoning is what changed. On 30 March, as CoinDesk reported, the broker said the roughly 60% fall in crypto stocks from their 2025 highs offered “big businesses at big discounts”. It cut Coinbase to $330 from $440 and Robinhood to $130 from $160, and listed stablecoins, tokenization, prediction markets and derivatives as the growth areas. A week earlier it had repeated a $150,000 year-end target for bitcoin.
Seven months later, the growth areas it named in March carry the model, and the crypto price rally is gone from it. Bitcoin traded near $80,270 at 17:21 UTC on Monday, and the total crypto market was worth about $2.71 trillion, 2% lower over 24 hours, according to Coindaro’s market data. Robinhood’s target, cut in March, stands at $160 again, the level it had before that cut, and prediction markets are now the main reason given. Coinbase’s, cut in March, was cut again, with its spot trading expected to stay flat.
Put plainly, the listed US crypto companies now make more of their forecast money from products other than coin trading: contracts on outcomes, futures, and the interest earned on stablecoin reserves. Bitcoin bets alone reached a reported $2.7 billion in a week on Kalshi and Polymarket, as we reported on 24 October, mostly on 15-minute up-or-down contracts.
Robinhood, Coinbase and Circle earnings dates
The three companies report within nine days. Each date below comes from the company’s own announcement.
- Robinhood: third-quarter results on Tuesday 27 October after the US market close, with a video call at 2:00 PM PT (21:00 UTC), according to Robinhood’s investor relations announcement of 1 October.
- Coinbase: results and shareholder materials on Thursday 29 October after the close, with a live question-and-answer session on X at 2:00 PM PT (21:00 UTC), according to the company’s Business Wire release of 14 October.
- Circle: results on Wednesday 4 November, with a webcast at 8:00 AM ET (13:00 UTC), according to Circle’s press release of 7 October.
The Robinhood and Coinbase calls fall on either side of the Federal Reserve’s decision on Wednesday 28 October. US clocks move back an hour on 1 November, so Circle’s 8:00 AM ET webcast falls at 13:00 UTC rather than 12:00 UTC.
What to watch in the three reports
For Robinhood, the first number is event contracts for the full quarter, which will also reveal September, the one month not yet published. If it lands near 16.4 billion, Bernstein’s estimate holds. The split of crypto volume between the app and Bitstamp matters too, as it shows whether retail clients came back to crypto at all in September.
For Coinbase, the question is whether the earnings line looks like Bernstein’s new model or its old one. Spot trading volume near $150 billion would confirm a flat quarter. Stablecoin revenue and the size of the derivatives business are the two lines the broker now leans on. Coinbase will also be asked about the €3.25 million fine imposed on its Irish unit on 22 October, which MT Newswires listed among the recent news on the stock.
For Circle, the figures to compare are revenue against the roughly $770 million Bernstein expects and USDC in circulation against the $73 billion it cites. Arc is what lifted Bernstein’s target, so any date for its token or its validator set would matter more to that number than a few hundred million dollars of USDC.
How prediction markets and derivatives earn money for a broker
A prediction market contract pays a fixed amount, typically $1, if an event happens and nothing if it does not. Its price, between 0 and 100 cents, reads as the market’s odds. In the US, these contracts trade on exchanges regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, such as Kalshi, and brokers like Robinhood route their clients’ orders there, typically for a fee per contract. That is why Bernstein can model revenue from contract counts rather than from crypto prices. A primer on the best-known venue is our Kalshi page.
Derivatives, such as futures and perpetual futures, earn fees on volume that can rise in a falling market as well as a rising one, because traders use them both to bet and to hedge. Spot trading fees, by contrast, have historically tracked crypto prices: when coins rally, retail clients buy, and volume follows. A forecast that no longer counts on a rally has to find revenue in the first two kinds of product.
What is not known
The full Bernstein note is not public, so the loss per share, the 2028 revenue figures and the quarterly volume estimates rest on The Block’s account. Coindaro could not find published consensus estimates for the three companies’ third quarters to set against them. The forecasts are the analysts’ views, and Robinhood’s own 27 October release will be the first hard data of the week.
Prediction markets also face legal risk in the US. Utah sued Kalshi on 20 October, naming two Susquehanna firms and arguing that they and Kalshi’s trading arm act as the house, The Block reported. Baltimore went further in August and also sued Kalshi’s distribution partners, Coinbase and Robinhood among them. If courts side with the states, part of the revenue Bernstein now models for 2028 would be at stake. The next date is Tuesday’s Robinhood release, after the US close.