Coinbase Institutional Business Booming as Analyst Reaffirms Bullish Outlook

Analyst Andrew Harte at BTIG remains bullish on Coinbase Global Inc (NASDAQ:COIN), reaffirming his Buy rating and price target of $240. He points out that the company's institutional business is often underappreciated by investors, but it's an increasingly important contributor to growth.

The institutional division serves a wide range of asset managers, banks, retailers, ETF providers, and exchange providers, accounting for around 20% of total revenue. It's becoming more robust than just offering crypto trading capabilities.

Coinbase Institutional co-CEO Brett Tejpaul is developing the business through three phases: building a core institutional crypto platform, extending infrastructure into payments and stablecoins, and expanding into tokenized assets and continuous markets over time.

The analyst notes that Phase 2 of extending the institutional infrastructure into payments is gaining traction. Coinbase now has more than 200 institutional clients who pay for access to its technology stack via the Coinbase Developer Platform, which is being called crypto-as-a-service.