Crypto Currents: Coinbase acquires capital raising platform Echo

As bitcoin, ethereum and other cryptocurrencies see major legal, institutional, and technological developments, the financial landscape continues to adapt. Stay up on the crypto news that matters with the “Crypto Currents” weekly from The Fly. Also, join us for your essential daily recap, every day at 2 PM ET on FlyCast radio.

COINBASE ACQUIRES CAPITAL RAISING PLATFORM ECHO: In a Tuesday blog post, Coinbase (COIN) announced it has acquired Echo, an onchain capital raising platform, for approximately $375M. The company said, “Like us, Echo believes in democratizing early-stage investing, so that more people can support the next generation of breakthrough companies. Founded by Cobie, a crypto OG and long-time advocate for community-driven investing, Echo has pioneered tools that make fundraising more inclusive, transparent, and efficient. The ‘why’ is simple. We want to create more accessible, efficient, and transparent capital markets. But today, founders often struggle to raise capital and individual investors don’t have the opportunity to invest in private token sales. Echo solves this by allowing projects to raise directly from their community, either through a private sale or by self-hosting a public token sale using Sonar. Integrating Echo’s tools will help us enable more direct community participation, joining projects with capital, entirely onchain. While we’ll start with crypto token sales via Sonar, we plan to expand support to tokenized securities and real-world assets over time, leveraging Echo’s infrastructure.”

On Monday, Compass Point raised the firm’s price target on Coinbase to $277 from $248 and kept a Sell rating on the shares. The firm expects Coinbase to report third quarter revenue 2% above the Street, which excludes about $43M in contribution from Deribit. While the firm says it could see Coinbase outperforming bitcoin and crypto prices ahead of Q3 results, it also notes that it sees “a number of factors that could cause actual results to underwhelm versus increasing expectations.”

Additionally, Clear Street initiated coverage of Coinbase with a Buy rating and $406 price target. The firm believes many asset classes will move on-chain, which will benefit Coinbase substantially. Management also has an ambitious goal to make its Base app a “Superapp,” similar to WeChat in China, the analyst said. The firm added that it believes Coinbase has ample growth opportunities driving higher valuation.

On Friday, JPMorgan upgraded Coinbase to Overweight from Neutral with a price target of $404, up from $342. The shares trade at an attractive valuation versus Coinbase’s cryptocurrency peers into the company’s “monetization opportunities and abating risks,” the analyst said. The firm expects Coinbase to explore a Base token, which it sees accelerating the growth of development on the Base blockchain. JPMorgan also sees Coinbase further exploring its USD coin payouts. This two moves “could be meaningful to Coinbase equity value,” said the firm.

TRUMP PARDONS BINANCE FOUNDER: President Trump has pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the convicted founder of the Binance crypto exchange, The Wall Street Journal’s Rebecca Ballhaus, Josh Dawsey, Patricia Kowsmann and Angus Berwick reported Thursday. The pardon follows months of efforts by Zhao to support a crypto company associated with the Trump family. Sources familiar with the matter indicated the president was sympathetic to arguments that Zhao and others faced political persecution. Cryptocurrency exchange Binance is the issuer of the BNB token.

CLEANSPARK EXPANDS INTO AI COMPUTE:  CleanSpark (CLSK) announced Monday the appointment of Jeffrey Thomas as Senior Vice President of AI Data Centers. Thomas will lead CleanSpark’s strategy to expand beyond bitcoin mining by developing and operating advanced AI data center infrastructure. This strategic evolution will diversify the company’s revenue streams, strengthen long-term cash flow potential, and enhance its ability to serve the world’s leading technology companies. Thomas joins CleanSpark from his role as President of AI Data Centres at Humain.

“We have been reviewing the entire portfolio from first principals to evaluate AI suitability and have identified Georgia as a strategic region for both potential conversion as well as expansion,” said Scott Garrison, CDO. “We recently contracted for additional power and real estate in College Park to deliver high-value compute to the greater Atlanta metro area and are evaluating giga-campus opportunities across the portfolio and pipeline that are well positioned to satisfy significant off-taker demand. With Jeff on board, we are ready to rapidly scale and continue maximizing the value of our growing power and land footprint.”

Following the announcement, Clear Street says CleanSpark’s expansion into high performance computing data center infrastructure “comes as no surprise” to the firm and marks “the initiation of a catalyst we’ve been calling out for several weeks.” After having visited the company’s Sandersville and Jackson sites, the firm notes that it previously highlighted that CleanSpark was well positioned to expand into HPC given its strong execution, low-cost power base, and balance-sheet flexibility. Clear Street maintains a $30 price target and Buy rating on CleanSpark shares.

GALAXY DIGITAL REPORTS Q3 EARNINGS: On Tuesday, Galaxy Digital (GLXY) reported Q3 adjusted earnings per share of $1.12 on a revenue of $29.2B, which compared to analyst estimates of 21c and $23.26B, respectively. The company also reported total equity of $3.2B and holdings of $1.9B in cash and stablecoins as of September 30. Galaxy also saw record quarterly digital asset trading volumes, up 140% versus Q2, reflecting increased spot and derivatives activity and the sale of more than 80,000 bitcoin on behalf of a client.

Following the report, Canaccord raised the firm’s price target on Galaxy Digital to $50 from $34 and kept a Buy rating on the shares. The firm said its Q3 results underscore their belief that Galaxy remains a solid diversified play across two of the most exciting growth sectors out there, crypto-related financial services combined with what is evolving as one of the best data center portfolios out there, focused on AI hosting.

Additionally, Benchmark raised the firm’s price target on Galaxy Digital to $57 from $40 and keeps a Buy rating on the shares. The company’s move into AI and high-performance computing through its Helios data center campus in Texas has attracted the attention of more investors and analysts, but Q3 print, the “strongest ever for its digital asset trading operations,” is a reminder that the company is “remarkably well positioned” to serve as a leading facilitator of the adoption of crypto by institutional investors, the analyst said.

Meanwhile, Rosenblatt raised the firm’s price target on Galaxy Digital to $46 from $44 and kept a Buy rating on the shares after Galaxy delivered a “record quarter” against high expectations. Galaxy’s “impressive quarter should help improve the narrative and makes the case that Galaxy is much more than an HPC play,” the analyst said.

B. RILEY RAISES PRICE TARGETS: B. Riley raised the firm’s price target on TeraWulf (WULF) to $22 from $14 and kept a Buy rating on the shares. The firm upped price targets in the high performance compute space citing continued momentum. Its 2026 estimates increased 5% on average on the “continued surge in demand” for power and data center capacity. Terawulf remains B. Riley’s top pick. B. Riley also raised the firm’s price target on Bitdeer (BTDR) to $32 from $17, on IREN (IREN) to $74 from $29, on Riot Platforms (RIOT) to $28 from $16, on Hut 8 (HUT) to $61 from $26, on Hive Digital (HIVE) to $8 from $7, on WhiteFiber (WYFI) to $44 from $34, on Bitfarms (BITF) to $7 from $3, on Applied Digital (APLD) to $47 from $23 and on Canaan (CAN) to $3 from $2. The analyst kept a Buy rating on all the names.

B. Riley also upgraded Core Scientific (CORZ) to(CRWV). Investors are unhappy with the floating exchange ratio and absence of a cash component, the analyst said. B. Riley points out that while Core Scientific shares are trading at premium to the office price, the shares have lagged peers significantly as valuations in the high performance compute have substantially re-rated. The firm’s $30 price target reflects a standalone value for Core Scientific.

Additionally, Citizens JMP raised the firm’s price target on TeraWulf to $18 from $13 and kept an Outperform rating on the shares. After meetings last week at Structure Research’s Digital Infrastructure conference in Las Vegas, infra/STRUCTURE, and other news flows in the digital infrastructure sector, Citizens is increasingly confident that demand for traditional space and power has recently intensified, and that demand for GPUaaS space has increased despite new entrants, the analyst said. The firm believes debt issuance from former Bitcoin miners will take time to achieve investment grade status, even when backed by hyperscale balance sheets. Citizens JMP also raised the firm’s price target on Hut 8 to $65 from $25 and keeps an Outperform rating on the shares.

Northland also raised the firm’s price target on TeraWulf to(GOOGL) wants in a site and can help with this “huge Google/Anthropic cloud deal.”

Roth Capital also noted British Columbia is seeking to make new interconnect a more competitive process starting in 2026, including bidding and tranche availability. This includes a ban on new crypto mining and a focus on sovereign/local investment. The firm says IREN shares may have been weak on this news, but this applies only to new power, with Iren’s 180MW unaffected and potentially giving the company a leg-up on new entrants given tighter constraints and competitive bidding process with seniority favoring sovereign projects. Roth has a Buy rating on the shares with a price target of $82.

Meanwhile, Piper Sandler raised the firm’s price target on Riot Platforms to $25 from $18 and kept a Neutral rating on the shares. The firm noted Riot remains in a holding pattern as investors mull the opportunity for the bitcoin miner to sign a hyperscaler deal at either its Corsicana facility outside of Dallas, TX or its Rockdale facility outside of Austin, TX. Piper believes both sites are highly attractive assets to prospective AI/HPC hyperscaler tenant as they provide access to large amounts of power and are close to large metro areas. The past few quarters have proven relatively uneventful from an AI/HPC perspective, but the firm continues to suspect that Riot may be in talks with hyperscalers to eventually convert both sites away from BTC mining.

Piper Sandler also raised the firm’s price target on Hut 8 to $74 from $33 and kept an Overweight rating on the shares. The firm noted Hut 8 has about 1.5 GW of power under development across 4 U.S. sites, exclusive rights to another 1.3 GW, $1B of bitcoin on the balance sheet, and 64% ownership of American Bitcoin (ABTC). When valuing Hut 8’s power pipeline at a discounted $5M/critical IT MW, Piper arrives at a $74 price target.

OTHER CRYPTO NEWS: 

• SharpLink Gaming (SBET) ETH holding rises to 859,853 as of October 19
• Bitmine Immersion (BMNR) reports holdings totalling $13.4B
• FG Nexus (FGNX) enters deals to sell FG Reinsurance Division, Quebec property
• Hive Digital signs agreement to develop additional 100 MW campus at Yguazu site
• Mara Holdings (MARA) initiated with a Neutral at Guggenheim
• Strategy (MSTR) acquires 168 bitcoin for $18.8M
• Strategy initiated with a Buy at Citi
• Circle Internet (CRCL) initiated with a Hold at Clear Street, an Overweight at Wells Fargo
• Circle Internet price target raised to $93 from $89 at JPMorgan
• Bullish (BLSH) initiated with a Hold at Clear Street
• Canaan price target raised to $4 from $2 at Benchmark
• JPMorgan (JPM) to allow Bitcoin, Ether as collateral by year-end, Bloomberg reports

CRYPTO STOCK PLAYS: Publicly traded companies in the space include Bit Digital (BTBT), Coinbase, Core Scientific, Greenidge Generation (GREE), Mara Holdings, Strategy, Riot Platforms and TeraWulf.

PRICE ACTION: As of time of writing, bitcoin rose roughly 3% this week to $109,916 in U.S. dollars, according to CoinDesk.