Analysts have mixed opinions on Coinbase's acquisition of Deribit: Derivatives expansion is optimistic, but retail growth is questionable

Odaily Planet Daily News Coinbase chose to reveal the news of its acquisition of Deribit to the market before the U.S. stock market closed and released its financial report on Thursday. Benchmark analyst Mark Palmer pointed out that as more institutions adopt cryptocurrencies, the acquisition of Deribit will allow Coinbase to "immediately dominate the fast-growing derivatives field." Oppenheimer analyst Owen Lau believes that this move will make Coinbase a "strong challenger" to Binance, Bybit and OKX in the derivatives field, and emphasizes that "cryptocurrency options have weak cyclicality and have stable demand regardless of whether the market is rising or falling." However, Compass Point analysts Ed Engel and Joe Flynn pointed out that Deribit mainly serves institutional clients and does not help to increase Coinbase's retail-based perpetual contract trading volume. The two analysts downgraded Coinbase's rating to sell last week and reiterated that its U.S. retail trading market has become saturated. Michael Klena of Architect Partners believes that this acquisition will not fundamentally change its assessment of Coinbase (target price $170), after all, it is just an extension of the existing business and cannot reduce the impact of cryptocurrency market fluctuations on quarterly performance.