Crypto exchangesCybersecurity

Coinbase has reported a 75% drop in year-on-year revenue for Q4 2022 alongside $557 million losses as user numbers continue to fall.

The $629m revenue for the period was, however, ahead of market expectations.

In Q4 2021, Coinbase generated net profit of $840m at the peak of crypto adoption. The crypto winter has bitten hard since that time, with 18% of its staff cut in 2022 then 20% laid off last month.

Its 8.3m monthly transacting users were down 200,000 compared with Q3 2022, while trading volume fell 9% from the previous quarter to $145 billion and transaction revenue fell 12% to $322m.

Coinbase’s bid to diversify revenue streams away from solely trading fees saw success, with more than $200m generated from staking, earn and custody services in the quarter.

Meanwhile the company has reported a cyberattack which saw employee data stolen.

After text messages were sent to employees, one clicked on the included link, providing the attackers with login details. While Coinbase’s systems defended against the breach, the attackers rang the vulnerable employee, pretending to be from the IT department, and through them accessed contact information of Coinbase workers.

After 10 minutes the security team noticed the unusual activity and contacted the employee, ending contact with the attackers.

Coinbase says it believes the attack was led by 0ktapus, which last year targeted Twilio and Cloudflare among other major companies. This saw nearly 10,000 accounts compromised across 130 organisations.