Coinbase Deepens Citi Tie-Up to Scale Stablecoin Payments
Coinbase Global’s COIN expanded partnership with Citigroup underscores the growing shift of stablecoins from a crypto-native product toward mainstream institutional payments infrastructure. Per the arrangement, Citi’s institutional clients can accept stablecoin payments through Spring by Citi, with Coinbase providing the underlying digital-asset rails and automatically converting stablecoins into fiat for settlement by Citi as the bank of record.
The partnership also extends to Coinbase Virtual Accounts, which use Citi’s Virtual Account Wallet infrastructure. These accounts provide payment customers with bank-account-like functionality, including the ability to receive, hold and transfer funds, while incoming fiat can be automatically converted into stablecoins. Citi, in turn, supplies the regulated banking framework needed to connect these digital-asset flows with the broader financial system. The agreement builds on the companies’ October 2025 collaboration focused on fiat-to-crypto payment infrastructure.
Strategically, the partnership strengthens Coinbase’s position at the intersection of traditional finance and blockchain-based payments. Coinbase brings digital-asset and stablecoin infrastructure serving a market of more than 150 million stablecoin holders, while Citi contributes global banking capabilities across more than 180 countries and jurisdictions.
Importantly, greater exposure to stablecoin payments, USDC balances, conversion and settlement could broaden Coinbase’s recurring transaction-related revenues and reduce its dependence on the more cyclical retail crypto-trading business.
What About COIN’s Peers?
Stablecoins, especially USDC, are also fundamental to Circle Internet Group’s CRCL business strategy. As USDC’s issuer, Circle earns revenues through interest on reserves and transaction flows. Stablecoins also support Circle’s expansion into payments, DeFi, and global finance, reinforcing its role as a core infrastructure provider in the digital asset ecosystem.
Stablecoins are playing a growing role in BlackRock Inc.’s BLK digital strategy. Through its partnership with Circle, BlackRock manages USDC reserves, gaining direct exposure to stablecoin infrastructure. This supports BlackRock’s broader push to modernize finance by leveraging blockchain technology for tokenized assets, real-time settlements and more efficient capital markets.
COIN’s Price Performance
Shares of COIN have lost 14.4% in the year-to-date period, underperforming the industry.
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COIN’s Expensive Valuation
COIN trades at a price-to-earnings ratio of 86.71, significantly above the industry average of 14.76.
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Estimate Movement for COIN
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for COIN’s third-quarter and fourth-quarter 2026 earnings per share (EPS) witnessed northbound movement in the last 30 days. The same holds true for 2026 and 2027.
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The consensus estimates for COIN’s 2026 revenues and earnings indicate year-over-year decreases. Nonetheless, the consensus estimates for 2027 revenues and earnings imply year-over-year increases.
COIN stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
