Crypto Currents: Crypto firms report Q3 earnings

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COINBASE REPORTS Q3 EARNINGS BEAT: On Thursday, Coinbase (COIN) reported third quarter earnings per share of $1.44 on revenue of $1.87B, which compared to analyst estimates of $1.21 and $1.8B respectively. The company also guided to October transaction revenue of approximately $385M and Q4 subscription and services revenue to be within $710M-$790M.

The company said, “Q3 was a strong quarter for Coinbase. We drove solid financial results, maintained focus on shipping innovative products, and continued building the foundation of the Everything Exchange…We are accelerating payments through stablecoin adoption, which we anticipate will continue given policy tailwinds, and ongoing adoption from financial institutions and corporates for payment and treasury needs. In Q3, USDC reached an all-time high of $74B in market capitalization, and average USDC held in Coinbase products reached an all-time high of over $15B. Additionally, we continue to scale payments with USDC, new partnerships, and crypto rewards for purchases through the CB1 Card. With regulatory clarity accelerating, crypto rails are set to power more of global GDP, and we believe Coinbase is positioned to lead. We’re progressing toward the Everything Exchange vision, and scaling payments b advancing stablecoin adoption with USDC.”

Following the report, Barclays lowered the firm’s price target on Coinbase to $357 from $361 and kept an Equal Weight rating on the shares. The company’s Q3 results beat Street expectations driven by higher transaction revenue and operating leverage, the analyst said. However, the firm says Coinbase’s costs are expected to step up meaningfully in Q4, setting up a “more challenging” EBITDA year in 2026 absent a meaningful increase in trading activity or USDC growth.

Additionally, BTIG raised the firm’s price target on Coinbase to $420 from $410 and kept a Buy rating on the shares. The company reported “solid” Q3 results with revenue and adjusted EBITDA well ahead of Street estimates, the analyst said. The firm believes the earnings print affirmed its thesis that Coinbase is in the early stages of building a “virtuous flywheel” between its trading business and digital applications.

Meanwhile, Clear Street raised the firm’s price target on Coinbase to $415 from $406 and kept a Buy rating on the shares. The company’s Q3 beat was driven by higher transaction revenue than expected, the analyst said. The firm believes Coinbase’s outlook continues to improve.

JPMorgan also lowered the firm’s price target on Coinbase to $399 from $404 and kept an Overweight rating on the shares. Expectations were high going into the quarter and the “breadth of Coinbase’s solid results we think will satisfy investors,” the analyst said.

Cantor Fitzgerald lowered the firm’s price target on Coinbase to $459 from $500 and kept an Overweight rating on the shares. Coinbase exceeded the firm’s trading volume, revenue, and adjusted EBITDA estimates in what was a strong quarter, and Q4 is off to a strong start, with the company saying October transaction revenue is run-rating 10% higher than the 3Q25 average, the analyst said. The firm believes Coinbase will be much more than just the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, which makes risk/reward feel attractive.

Webull (BULL) also announced Thursday the expansion of its crypto futures offering through an ongoing partnership with Coinbase Derivatives. Webull users in the U.S. will be able to trade futures contracts for Dogecoin, Nano XRP, Nano Solana, Litecoin, XRP and Solana.

Prior to the earnings report, H.C. Wainwright double upgraded Coinbase to Buy from Sell with a price target of $425, up from $300. The firm cited its “bullish outlook” for crypto asset prices in Q4 and the company’s regulatory tailwinds for the double upgrade. H.C. Wainwright expects rising crypto asset prices, driven by seasonal strength and accelerating institutional demand. and regulatory tailwinds to drive the stock higher in Q4. The firm sees a high probability of the market structure legislation passing the Senate before the end of 2025, after the CLARITY Act passed the House in July. This would be a “major positive” catalyst for Coinbase, it contended.

Additionally on Wednesday, Galaxy Digital (GLXY) announced its integration with Coinbase Prime. Through this collaboration, Coinbase Prime clients can access Galaxy’s staking infrastructure.

On Monday, Coinbase Asset Management announced a strategic partnership with Apollo Global (APO). The initiative serves as a bridge for the stablecoin, private-credit-lending, and tokenization economies. The two companies will collaborate on credit investments with the goal of bringing innovative products to market in 2026.

Citi (C) and Coinbase also announced Monday their intention to collaborate on digital asset payment capabilities for Citi’s institutional clients and explore additional global clients in the future.

MORE CRYPTO EARNINGS: On Tuesday, TeraWulf (WULF) reported preliminary Q3 revenue of $48M-$52M, which compared to analyst consensus of $56.22M. The company also expects to report adjusted EBITDA of between $15M-$19M, versus $6M in 3Q24.

“Our preliminary results reflect continued strength in our operating performance and the early benefits of repositioning Lake Mariner for high-performance compute workloads,” said Patrick Fleury, CFO. “We are successfully executing against the strategy we outlined earlier this year: converting our advantaged infrastructure positions into long-duration contracted HPC capacity backed by investment-grade counterparties. With more than 510 MW of contracted critical IT load now secured, including the new JV announced today, we are operating at a commercial run-rate consistent with our forward strategy of contracting an additional 250 to 500 MW per year. This reinforces the scalability of our platform and our ability to unlock value through disciplined capital deployment alongside world-class partners.”

TeraWulf also announced Tuesday that it has executed a long-term high-performance computing joint venture with Fluidstack. Under the agreement, the parties will develop and deliver 168 MW of critical IT load at the Abernathy, Texas campus, serving workloads for a global hyperscale AI platform developing frontier-scale foundation models, backed by an investment-grade, long-duration infrastructure commitment through Fluidstack’s platform. The facility is expected to be delivered in 2H26. The 25-year hosting commitment represents approximately $9.5B in contracted revenue to the joint venture. TeraWulf will hold a majority stake of 51% in the joint venture. The joint venture also has the right to develop subsequent phases at the Abernathy campus beyond the initial 168 MW, leveraging existing transmission and development infrastructure to support incremental high-density capacity additions. Separately, TeraWulf secured the exclusive right to partner with Fluidstack for up to 51% of the next Fluidstack-led ~168 MW data center project on substantially similar commercial terms. As a result of this transaction, TeraWulf’s contracted HPC platform now exceeds 510 MW of critical IT load. The joint venture will be project-financed, with Google (GOOGL) backing approximately $1.3B of Fluidstack’s long-term lease obligations to support project-related debt financing, materially enhancing credit quality for project debt.

On Wednesday, Citizens JMP raised the firm’s price target on TeraWulf to $22 from $18 and kept an Outperform rating on the shares. The firm said the creation of a joint venture in Abernathy, Texas with Google-backed Fluidstack represents the first new development beyond its existing legacy footprint. TeraWulf has now become a key component of the rapidly developing AI arms race and other deals similar to it are likely to follow, the firm contended.

Meanwhile, Northland raised the firm’s price target on TeraWulf to $23.25 from $18.25 and kept an Outperform rating on the shares. The firm believes the deal highlights TeraWulf’s “deep understanding of what Google is looking for,” the analyst said.

Needham raised the firm’s price target on TeraWulf to $21 from $11 and kept a Buy rating on the shares. The company has signaled it can find capacity despite a constrained market with the Fluidstack JV agreement, and the firm has increased confidence that TeraWulf can source the company’s targeted 250-500MW of capacity annually, the analyst said.

Clear Street also raised the firm’s price target on TeraWulf to $20 from $16 and kept a Buy rating on the shares. The 25-year hosting commitment represents about $9.5B in contracted revenue, with TeraWulf holding a 51% stake, noted the analyst, who remains positive on shares as the company refines its “highly replicable recipe” to HPC data center growth.

Also on Tuesday, Oppenheimer initiated coverage of TeraWulf with an Outperform rating and $20 price target. The firm noted the company is transitioning from a bitcoin miner to a high-performance compute AI infrastructure company. It controls high-quality land with low-cost renewable electricity and fiber networks. This infrastructure has enabled it to sign attractive contracts with the highest credit quality customers in the AI industry, Oppenheimer added.

On Thursday, Riot Platforms (RIOT) reports Q3 EPS of 26c on revenue of $180.2M, which compared to analyst estimates of 21c and $172.3M respectively. The company produced 1,406 bitcoin, as compared to 1,104 during the same three-month period in 2024. Riot held 19,287 bitcoin, to approximately $2.2B based on a market price for one bitcoin on September 30, 2025, of $114,068.

“Riot made decisive progress in the development of our data center business this quarter,” said Jason Les, CEO. “This progress has culminated in announcing today the initiation of the core and shell development of the first two buildings at our Corsicana data center campus, representing 112 MW of total critical IT capacity. This development has been made possible by four key achievements this quarter, namely; the acquisition of an additional 67-acre parcel of land directly adjacent to our original Corsicana site, the completion of the Campus Design for Corsicana, which will transform the entire site for data center development, the completion of the Basis of Design for our standard data center build, and the ongoing build out of our in-house data center team. Together, these developments represent key advancements in our efforts to transform Riot into a large-scale, multi-faceted data center operator, in line with our strategy of maximizing the value of our unique portfolio of land and power assets.”

Piper Sandler raised the firm’s price target on Riot Platforms on Friday to $26 from $25 and kept an Overweight rating on the shares. The firm noted this quarter, the company laid out the first timeline for a Corsicana data center build-out, expecting two buildings supporting 112 MW of critical IT to be completed by 1Q27. Riot’s conversations with potential tenants at Corsicana are still ongoing, but Piper suspects Riot is nearing a deal announcement and believes management’s decision to embark on a capital intensive data center construction project supports this.

On Thursday, Strategy (MSTR) reported Q3 EPS of $8.42 on revenue of $128.7M, which compared to analyst consensus of $9.67 and $116.93M, respectively. The company also reaffirmed a FY25 EPS view of roughly $80.00, which compared to analyst estimates of $42.29M. Strategy reported 640,808 bitcoin holdings at a total cost of $47.44B, or $74,032 per bitcoin.

“In the third quarter and into October, Strategy continued to strengthen its position as the world’s leading Bitcoin Treasury Company. We increased our bitcoin holdings to 640,808 bitcoin and have raised $20B year-to-date through our robust capital markets platform. We remain fully aligned with our STRC guidance framework and have announced a 25 bps increase in the STRC dividend rate to 10.50% for November. We are also actively laying the groundwork for credit securities in international jurisdictions, positioning Strategy to become a dominant credit issuer globally. With this momentum, we are reaffirming our full year targets of $20B BTC $ Gain and 30% BTC Yield,” said Phong Le, CEO.

Following the report, BTIG lowered the firm’s price target on Strategy to $630 from $700 and kept a Buy rating on the shares. The company’s Executive Chairman Michael Saylor during the earnings call discussed how Strategy is building a “credit factory” that offers investors different levels of bitcoin exposure, and the call also demonstrated how Strategy is expanding its addressable market to offer credit products to new investors, the analyst said.

Meanwhile, Cantor Fitzgerald lowered the firm’s price target on Strategy to $560 from $697 and kept an Overweight rating on the shares. October additions of only 778 BTC mark the slowest monthly accumulation in over a year, reflecting a compressed mNAV, which limits the accretive potential of Strategy’s capital markets strategy and reduces the valuation of its treasury operations, Cantor said.

CLEANSPARK ACQUIRES 271 ACRES IN AUSTIN COUNTY, TEXAS: CleanSpark (CLSK) announced Wednesday it has acquired the rights to approximately 271 acres of land in Austin County, Texas, and executed long-term power supply agreements totaling 285 megawatts to support the development of a next-generation data center campus. Under the terms of the purchase agreement, the company paid a combination of cash consideration and shares of the company’s common stock at closing, plus additional cash consideration payable upon the occurrence of post-closing events.

“This acquisition marks a major milestone in CleanSpark’s strategic business evolution,” said Matt Schultz, CEO. “Securing power and land at this scale in one of the nation’s most attractive markets positions us to meet the accelerating demand for AI compute while continuing to deliver long-term value for our shareholders. We continue to lead in bitcoin mining, are actively reviewing AI conversion opportunities across our existing portfolio and have now entered the Texas market with a site purpose-acquired for an AI campus.”

Following the report, H.C. Wainwright reiterated a Buy rating on CleanSpark with a $30 price target. The firm believes the site in Texas could unlock over $3.8B of shareholder value by 2027. “We are not surprised to see the stock outperform today on the bullish announcement,” the analyst said. H.C. Wainwright views the news as a “major step forward” in CleanSpark’s AI data center strategy.

CleanSpark also announced on Tuesday that it is working with Submer to evaluate opportunities for future collaboration. The two companies are working together on an infrastructure platform that integrates power generation, data center development, and AI-service delivery. Under this framework, CleanSpark would focus on selecting, developing, building, and operating AI-focused campuses, while Submer will offer its technology and expertise in sustainable, modular data-center systems.

CORE SCIENTIFIC, COREWEAVE TERMINATE MERGER AGREEMENT: Core Scientific (CORZ) announced Thursday that at a special meeting of Core Scientific stockholders, the company did not receive the votes necessary to approve the previously announced merger agreement with CoreWeave (CRWV). On October 30, pursuant to and in accordance with the merger agreement, Core Scientific terminated the merger agreement with CoreWeave. Core Scientific will remain a publicly traded company, and the company’s common stock will continue to trade on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “CORZ.”

Following the news, CoreWeave commented on the outcome of Core Scientific’s Special Meeting of Stockholders. “CoreWeave and Core Scientific will continue to execute on their respective growth strategies and collaborate on shared opportunities that leverage their complementary strengths,” the company stated. Michael Intrator, CEO of CoreWeave, added, “We respect the views of Core Scientific stockholders and look forward to continuing our commercial partnership. CoreWeave’s strategy remains unchanged. We will continue to execute with discipline against our roadmap to create long-term shareholder value, including through opportunistic and strategic M&A.”

Additionally, Two Seas Capital, one of the largest shareholders of Core Scientific, commented on the outcome of the special meeting.  Sina Toussi, CIO of Two Seas, said, “We thank our fellow shareholders for their engagement during this process and their support in rejecting this transaction at the Special Meeting. We appreciate the fact that so many of you recognize the value of Core Scientific and share our enthusiasm for the company’s bright future. Now is the time to focus on the road ahead and for Core Scientific’s management team to get back to the important work of growing the company’s power pipeline, securing additional contracts and building next generation data centers. Core Scientific has been a pioneer in the AI infrastructure build-out and we are excited for this growth story to continue.”

Clear Street raised the firm’s price target on Core Scientific to $27 from $23 and kept a Buy rating on the shares following Core Scientific the terminatin. The firm sees this as a “clear positive that removes an overhang” and unlocks value.

Craig-Hallum upgraded Core Scientific to Buy from Hold with a $27 price target. The firm said that “sometimes it is better to be single than be married.”

TRUMP MEDIA TO MAKE PREDICTION MARKETS AVAILABLE ON TRUTH SOCIAL: On Tuesday, Trump Media and Technology Group (DJT) announced that it will make prediction markets available on Truth Social through an exclusive arrangement with Crypto.com Derivatives North America. Truth Social users will be able to trade prediction contracts related to major events and milestones, such as political elections, interest and inflation rate changes, commodity prices on gold and crude oil, events across all major sports leagues, and more using the new product technology called “Truth Predict.”

“We are thrilled to become the world’s first publicly traded social media platform to offer our users access to prediction markets,” said Devin Nunes, CEO. “Truth Predict will allow our loyal users to engage in prediction markets with a trusted network while harnessing our social media platform to provide totally unique ways for users to discuss and compare their predictions. With more than $3B in financial assets as of the end of the second quarter, and having posted our first quarter of positive operating cash flow after going public just last year, Trump Media is well-positioned to leverage our strong balance sheet and existing social media capabilities to create a new standard for access to prediction market platforms.”

OTHER CRYPTO NEWS: 

• Bitdeer (BTDR) price target raised to $32 from $19 at H.C. Wainwright
• Iren (IREN) downgraded to Sell from Buy at H.C. Wainwright
• Hut 8 (HUT) price target raised to $78 from $36 at Benchmark
• Hive Digital (HIVE) price target raised to $8 from $6 at H.C. Wainwright
• Bitfarms (BITF) price target raised to $5.50 from $4 at H.C. Wainwright
• Canaan (CAN) unveils Avalon A16 Series bitcoin mining machine
• Canaan wins 4.5 MW mining server contract in Japan
• American Bitcoin (ABTC) acquires 1,414 bitcoin
• SharpLink Gaming (SBET) initiated with an Outperform at Bernstein
• Bitmine Immersion (BMNR) reports ETH holdings of over 3.3M tokens
• Circle Internet (CRCL) launches public testnet for Arc Layer-1 blockchain network
• MasterCard (MA) reportedly in late-stage talks to acquire Zerohash

CRYPTO STOCK PLAYS: Publicly traded companies in the space include Bit Digital (BTBT), Coinbase, Core Scientific, Greenidge Generation (GREE), Mara Holdings (MARA), Strategy, Riot Platforms and TeraWulf.

PRICE ACTION: As of time of writing, bitcoin was roughly flat this week at $110,054 in U.S. dollars, according to CoinDesk.