Share this article

Coinbase Gets Another Upgrade, This Time at Raymond James, as Bears Capitulate

The brokerage firm lifted its rating on the crypto exchange’s shares to market perform from underperform.

Updated Mar 12, 2024, 9:05 p.m. Published Mar 12, 2024, 9:03 p.m.
Coinbase (Alpha Photo/Flickr)
Coinbase (Alpha Photo/Flickr)
  • Coinbase shares upgraded to market perform from underperform at Raymond James.
  • The firm cited the positive impact of spot bitcoin ETF flows on crypto valuations.
  • Goldman Sachs revised its negative rating on the shares last week.

Investment bank Raymond James is the latest Wall Street firm to revise its negative rating of the shares of crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN), after surging exchange-traded fund (ETF) inflows triggered a rally in the stock and bitcoin pushed to all time highs.

While Raymond James said its long-term bias on Coinbase remained negative, the firm admitted to underestimating the impact that spot ETF inflows would have on the valuations of cryptocurrencies, particularly bitcoin.

STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the The Protocol Newsletter today. See all newsletters

Raymond James upgraded the stock to market perform from underperform. Coinbase shares closed 0.8% higher at $256.14. The changes and commentary were contained in a research report published Tuesday.

Despite the upgrade, the firm maintained a cautious tone.

“We continue to have substantial doubts about the firm’s long term earnings prospects given what we view as an essentially commoditized client offering, a tenuous long-term earnings outlook for cryptocurrency valuations that appears to be largely premised on the Greater Fool Theory rather than inherent value, and meaningful regulatory risk,” analysts led by Patrick O’Shaughnessy wrote.

“We would suggest that the longer this crypto rally persists, the greater the odds that a competitor attacks Coinbase with a disruptive pricing strategy,” the authors wrote.

Until ETF flows taper or reverse, the stock’s positive momentum is likely to persist, the report added.

The Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs last week abandoned its bearish stance on Coinbase shares, upgrading the stock to neutral from sell, citing higher crypto prices and increased retail participation.

Read more: Coinbase Upgraded to Neutral as Goldman Sachs Ends Bearish Stance

More For You

Protocol Research: GoPlus Security

GP Basic Image

What to know:

  • As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
  • GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
  • Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.

More For You

El Salvador Partners with Elon Musk’s Grok in AI-Powered Education for 1M Students

The National Palace in San Salvador, El Salvador.

The nation that first adopted bitcoin as legal tender is looking to pioneer AI-powered education in 5,000 Salvadoran schools with xAI’s Grok

What to know:

  • El Salvador is partnering with Elon Musk's xAI to launch the world's first national AI-powered public education system.
  • The initiative will deploy xAI's Grok chatbot to over 5,000 public schools, benefiting more than a million students and thousands of teachers.
  • The project aims to create new AI datasets and frameworks for education, focusing on local context and responsible AI use.