Coinbase CEO expects a slow recovery from crypto winter

• Crypto winter has seen crypto prices fall to new cycle lows
• Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong says its difficult to predict markets, but foresees the crypto market recovery taking a year or more.
• Armstrong hints at Coinbase being prepared for the down cycle after going through four such cycles before.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong believes recovery from the crypto bear market will take 12 to 18 months, but emphasised that the downturn as a whole is not a new phenomenon to the industry.

Armstrong was speaking to CNBC’s Kate Rooney in an interview published on Tuesday.

Crypto winter could last 12-18 months

Recent events, including the collapse of multiple crypto companies, means the industry remains in a bear cycle. For Coinbase, the downturn has impacted its shares and company revenue. But Armstrong is bullish on the sector and for the crypto exchange.

“Obviously we are in a bit of a down cycle here, but it’s nothing unusual for us,” he told Rooney, noting that what’s happening is what Coinbase has gone through before.

According to him, the company has seen four such down cycles in the past 10 years since its launch, with 2022 only different in the sense that the downturn has coincided with “the broader micro environment.”

The past few months have seen crypto markets brutalised, with leading cryptocurrency Bitcoin falling from its perch above $69,000 in November to below the previous bull market cycle high of $20,000. 

The broader crypto market, with Ethereum also losing most of the bull cycle gains, saw over $2 trillion in market cap value wiped off.

On how long he sees the down cycle lasting, he says it’s likely to be 12 to 18 months. However, although he foresees a recovery within this period, he warns that the market might have to “plan for it being longer than that.”

“That’s how we think about it, and we don’t try to get too cute predicting the future,” he added.

He also talked about his company’s plans to cut costs, further measures to the layoffs it undertook in June. As for shifting from dependence on trading fees, the company is looking to build its business around more subscription and service-based revenue generation.

The key is to have up to 50% of the revenue come from the above models, he said.