Coinbase stock jumps 12% to $194 on rules and crypto

Coinbase stock jumped 12% on Friday, September 18, closing at $194. The rally accompanied a broader crypto market surge in which bitcoin rose 5.7% to $80,941 and ether gained 5.9% to $2,594. Peer crypto firms also advanced, with Robinhood gaining 9% and Strategy rising nearly 13%.

The rebound followed a turbulent week in Washington. The U.S. Senate blocked the Clarity Act on September 15, an event that had dragged Coinbase stock down by up to 9% and pushed bitcoin toward $76,000. Regulators then stepped in. The SEC unveiled a five-year exemption for tokenized stock trading on September 17. On Friday, the CFTC proposed crypto asset market rules along with a framework permitting software providers to route users to prediction markets without registering as brokers.

The CFTC decision touches Coinbase's fastest-growing segment. According to Haas at Citi's Global TMT Conference on September 10, prediction markets crossed $100 million in annualized revenue within months of launch and expanded 106% quarter over quarter in the second quarter. The business complements tokenized equities Coinbase has started offering to non-U.S. clients.

Across 35 analysts tracked by TIKR, 18 hold buy ratings, 3 recommend outperform, 11 rate it hold, one carries no opinion, one rates it underperform, and one recommends sell. The mean price target sits at $202, roughly 4% above Friday's close, down 46% from a peak of nearly $376 in September of last year after successive reductions to $364 in December, $247 in March, and $229 in June. Over that period, the share price fluctuated between $337 and a June low of $146, while buy ratings increased from 13 to 18.