Coinbase and Circle slide ~70% from highs as crypto equities

Coinbase and Circle are now roughly 70% off their all-time highs, a deeper drawdown than several large-cap tech names and far worse than the S&P 500’s modest pullback. The divergence is widening as Bitcoin slips below $60,000, Ether trades near $1,500, and Coinbase’s latest quarterly results miss expectations.

Key Takeaways

Coinbase (COIN) and Circle (CRCL) are down 69% and 72% from their all-time highs.
Oracle, Salesforce, Netflix, and Palantir are down 48%–57% from their peaks, based on figures circulated by The Kobeissi Letter.
The S&P 500 is down 3.5% from its recent high in the same comparison set.
Coinbase’s first-quarter report missed expectations, with revenue down 21% quarter-over-quarter and EPS at -$1.49 versus a +$0.27 consensus.

Crypto-Linked Stocks Sink Deeper Than Big Tech

Crypto-linked equities are trading like the market’s high-beta corner, not like “tech with a token narrative.” Coinbase (COIN) and Circle (CRCL) were cited as down 69% and 72% from their all-time highs, a larger peak-to-current drawdown than several widely held tech names.

In the same snapshot, Oracle (ORCL), Salesforce (CRM), Netflix (NFLX) and Palantir (PLTR) were down between 48% and 57% from their peaks, with the figures attributed to The Kobeissi Letter. The S&P 500, by contrast, was presented as down 3.5% from its recent high.

That spread matters for positioning. When crypto proxies are underperforming both the index and large-cap tech by this margin, the tape is signaling that investors are assigning them a higher risk premium than the rest of the growth complex.

BTC Below $60K and ETH Near $1,500 Add Pressure to Equity Proxies

The equity weakness is not happening in a vacuum. Bitcoin fell below $60,000 this week and was described as down more than 54% from its October peak. Ether was described as recently trading around $1,500, roughly 69% below last year’s high.

For traders, that is the cleanest linkage between spot and equities. COIN and CRCL function as liquid equity proxies for crypto risk appetite, and a renewed leg down in BTC and ETH typically tightens financial conditions for the whole complex, from retail flows to institutional risk budgets.

The broader tech selloff has been framed around concerns that advances in artificial intelligence could disrupt parts of the sector’s existing business models. Semiconductor stocks were described as holding up better despite volatility, but crypto-related equities have remained under pressure amid digital-asset weakness and uneven progress on US crypto market structure legislation.

Coinbase’s Q1 Miss Becomes a Stock-Specific Overhang

Coinbase added its own catalyst to an already fragile setup. The company’s first-quarter results missed Wall Street expectations, with revenue falling 21% from the prior quarter.

Profitability also came in materially weaker than consensus. Coinbase posted an earnings-per-share loss of $1.49 versus analysts’ expectation for a $0.27 profit.

In a tape already treating crypto equities as higher-beta risk assets, an earnings miss like this can amplify the sector move. It gives investors a stock-specific reason to de-risk COIN rather than treating it as a simple “BTC up, COIN up” expression.

Levels and Catalysts Traders Are Watching Next

The threshold that matters near-term is whether Bitcoin can reclaim and hold $60,000 after breaking below it this week. A sustained move back above that level would at least reduce the immediate sentiment drag on crypto-linked equities.

Ether’s behavior around the ~$1,500 area is the other pressure point cited in the market narrative. Stabilization there would help argue the selloff is cooling rather than cascading.

On the equity side, traders are watching whether COIN and CRCL can narrow their underperformance versus the S&P 500 and large-cap tech drawdowns, or whether the gap continues to widen. Any concrete milestones on US crypto market structure legislation would also matter, but the current framing points to “uneven progress” without a named bill or timeline.

When Crypto Equities Underperform, It’s a Risk-Appetite Tell

I treat a ~70% drawdown in COIN and CRCL against a 3.5% pullback in the S&P 500 as a clean read on risk appetite, not a subtle relative-value story. The market is pricing crypto-linked equities as the first assets to get hit when liquidity tightens and the last to recover when confidence is fragile.

The real test is whether spot can stabilize first. If BTC can hold reclaimed ground above $60,000 and ETH stops bleeding around $1,500, the setup starts to look structural rather than narrative-driven, and the equity proxies should stop widening the underperformance gap. What would make this development matter in practical terms is a shift from “crypto equities as forced beta” back to “crypto equities as investable operating businesses,” and that starts with spot price stabilization plus cleaner earnings visibility.

Sources

Cointelegraph