JPMorgan upgraded COIN to Overweight, significantly raising the target price to $404

ChainCatcher news, according to CNBC, JPMorgan's attitude towards Coinbase is shifting from a wait-and-see approach to active involvement. The bank has upgraded the stock rating of this cryptocurrency exchange platform from neutral to overweight and significantly raised its target price from $342 to $404. Although Coinbase's stock price has risen 30% this year, JPMorgan believes its valuation remains attractive compared to competitors.

Based on the revised forecasting model, the bank expects a further 25% upside in the stock price. Analyst Kenneth Worthington pointed out that Coinbase is exploring the feasibility of launching the Base token, which will serve as an important catalyst. He believes this move will accelerate the ecosystem development of the Base blockchain (launched in August 2023). He wrote in the report: "The market capitalization of this token could ultimately swell to a range of $12 billion to $34 billion, and we believe the token issuance will achieve a win-win for shareholders and cryptocurrency participants—driving ecosystem development, enhancing community engagement, and promoting infrastructure construction."

Another major growth driver comes from Coinbase deepening its research on the payment application of the USDC stablecoin to promote its monthly subscription service, Coinbase One. Worthington analyzed: "We observe that Coinbase is driving the growth of Coinbase One while enhancing the monetization capability of USDC on the platform through USDC yield experiments."

This move is expected to attract more customers to use the Coinbase One service, which offers subscription-based trading fee rates and enhanced yields with USDC. Meanwhile, Worthington believes that the erosion of Coinbase's spot trading share by decentralized trading platforms has basically stabilized. He added that launching decentralized trading services through the Base chain will also help mitigate this competitive threat.

JPMorgan stated that by applying a 50 times price-to-earnings ratio valuation to its competitors Circle and Bullish, and adding the value of the Base token, it derived a target price of $404 corresponding to Coinbase's profit expectations for 2027.