Bernstein hikes Coinbase price target to highest on Wall Street

Bernstein analyst Gautam Chhugani raised Coinbase’s price target to $510 from $310, writing that it was “the most misunderstood company in the firm’s crypto coverage universe.”

Shares were up about 4% in early trading.

Chhugani added that Coinbase, the largest US crypto exchange, will benefit from the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, which aims to provide a regulatory framework for stablecoins. Additional drivers include:

• Coinbase is the only crypto firm in the S&P 500;

• It’s the custodian for 8 of the 11 bitcoin ETF managers;

• It’s the most significant stablecoin business among exchanges;

• And it owns Deribit, the biggest crypto options platform, which it acquired in May in a mammoth $2.9 billion deal.

Bernstein maintained an “outperform” rating on the company.

Earlier this week, Benchmark Equity Research, which initiated coverage of the company in April, reiterated its “buy” rating and raised its price target to $421 from $301, according to a note.

Analyst Mark Palmer also noted that the GENIUS Act could help Coinbase, as stablecoins are a significant segment of the company’s business.

In addition, Palmer told Sherwood News that the enactment of the CLARITY Act, which seeks to establish a comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets in the US, could boost another of Coinbase’s services: staking.

“The initial version of the bill would establish that staking does not represent a securities offering, a clarification that we would expect should result in a sizeable increase in the company’s staking volumes as more institutional investors pursue the yield afforded by that offering,” Palmer said.

In unrelated but still positive news for Coinbase, the company also announced it helped the Secret Service recover $225 million in USDT “stolen through ‘pig butchering’ scams — and has begun the process of returning those funds to victims.”