Investing.com -- Crytocurrency exchange Coinbase swung to a profit in the first quarter as revenue more than doubled from a year earlier, underpinned by a jump in trading volumes.
Shares in Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) were down more than 3% in premarket U.S. trading. Analysts quoted by Reuters said that, despite a solid quarterly report, investors were concerned a dip in Bitcoin prices could weigh on trading volumes. The world's most popular cryptocurrency has fallen by over 9% in the last one-month period, although it has surged by nearly 38% so far this year.
Coinbase posted quarterly earnings per share of $4.40, compared with a loss of $0.34 a share a year earlier, and revenue of $1.64 billion, up from revenue of $772.5 million a year earlier. That topped Wall Street expectations for EPS of $0.90 on revenue of $1.29B.
Consumer trading volume came in at $56B in the first quarter, up 93% versus the prior three-month period -- an uptick that analysts at Jefferies said was due to higher crypto asset prices and market volatility. Meanwhile, institutional transaction revenue was $85 million, a spike of 133% quarter-on-quarter.
Total transaction revenue rose to $108B from $374.7M a year earlier, with subscription and services revenue rising to $510.9M from $361.7M.
"[W]e see Coinbase evolving into an increasingly durable company that will benefit from virtually all aspects of the growth of the crypto economy in the coming years," analysts at JMP said in a note to clients.
Looking ahead the company said that it expects second-quarter subscription and services revenue to be within a range of $525 to $600 million. The Jefferies analysts said this was 12% ahead of Wall Street projections.
Yasin Ebrahim contributed to this report.