Coinbase charted history as the first crypto firm to make it into the coveted Fortune 500, ranking 437th on the list of the biggest U.S. companies. Elated over the news, CEO Brian Armstrong tweeted “Just getting started!” and said there will be many crypto companies on the list by end of the decade.
The Fortune 500 represents two-thirds of U.S. gross domestic product, with revenue totaling $16.1 trillion.
Coinbase had a good run in 2021 and went public through a direct listing in April of the same year, less than a decade after it was founded. Its revenue was $7.8 billion, just over the minimum of $6.4 billion that companies are required to enter the Fortune 500 list.
However, its 2022 journey began on a rough footing as crypto prices plummeted and trading volumes took a hit. It then resorted to diversifying its revenue streams by officially launching its own NFT marketplace in early May, which did not turn out much profitable.
According to Bloomberg, the newly launched platform could garner only about 2,900 unique active users.
Since Coinbase’s business relies heavily on crypto trading, the current downtrend has put a dent in its earnings. Trading volume on its platform in the first quarter was $309 billion, short of the $331.2 billion analysts expected.
The trading platform also failed to live up to analyst expectations for the first quarter, reporting net revenue of $1.16 billion for the first three months ending March 31 and a net loss of $430 million.
Coinbase’s shares declined by 82% since the last ATH
At the time of writing, its stock price [COIN] was trading at around $61, down by 82% since its previous peak at $357 on 9 November 2021.
While Coinbase initially planned to triple the size of the firm going into 2022, its chief operations officer, Emilie Choi, said in a note to employees last week that the company would be scaling back hiring, partly due to prevailing market conditions.
According to its first-quarter earnings report, Coinbase recruited 1,200 people in the first quarter of the year. At present, it has more than 4,900 employees, as per data provided on its website.