What Happened?
Shares of blockchain infrastructure company Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) jumped 7% in the afternoon session after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell hinted at a potential interest rate cut, which boosted investor appetite for riskier assets like cryptocurrencies. The positive turn in sentiment came after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's speech in Jackson Hole, where he hinted at the possibility of an interest rate cut as soon as next month.
This news revived investor appetite for risk assets, benefiting the cryptocurrency market broadly. The move reversed a downward trend from earlier in the week, when concerns about the Fed's policy had pushed the stock down. Following Powell's speech, Bitcoin also surged from below $112,000 to around $116,500.
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What Is The Market Telling Us
Coinbase’s shares are extremely volatile and have had 63 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.
The previous big move we wrote about was 3 days ago when the stock dropped 5.6% on the news that investor apprehension intensified ahead of a key policy speech and perplexing inflation signals clouded the economic outlook, leading to a wider market retreat from growth-oriented stocks.
The downturn in the market was largely attributed to a significant sell-off in megacap tech and chipmaker shares. Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), and Broadcom all saw notable drops, dragging down the VanEck Semiconductor ETF. Other major tech-related companies like Tesla, Meta Platforms, and Netflix were also under pressure. A key reason for this trend is that much of the recent market gains have been concentrated in the "AI trade," which includes these large technology and semiconductor companies. So this could also mean that some investors are locking in some gains ahead of more definitive feedback from the Fed.
Coinbase is up 24.4% since the beginning of the year, but at $319.96 per share, it is still trading 23.8% below its 52-week high of $419.78 from July 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Coinbase’s shares at the IPO in April 2021 would now be looking at an investment worth $974.64.
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