Crypto Market Update: Coinbase Bleeds US$394 Million in Q1, Suffers AWS Outage

OKX data shared with the Investing News Network this week suggests that American crypto investors are worried about the US dollar’s future purchasing power and are increasing their crypto holdings.

Ninety percent of the 1,000 people surveyed said they’re concerned that the US dollar will lose purchasing power over the next five years, with 45 percent saying they are “extremely concerned.”

Forty-nine percent of respondents said they’ve moved further into crypto since January due to inflation concerns, with more than a quarter saying they did so in April. The concern was sharpest among Millennials.

Additionally, 47 percent of respondents said they view Bitcoin primarily as a store of value, with 33 percent saying that their conviction in the coin has strengthened since the start of 2026.

Longer term, 73 percent said they expect crypto to play a larger role in the global financial system a decade from now; only 3 percent said they view it as a passing trend. That's compared to a 2015 Coin Center survey, where 64.3 percent of Americans surveyed indicated that they were not at all familiar with Bitcoin.

Relatedly, Independent Reserve, an Australia-based digital asset exchange, released its Cryptocurrency Index Report for this year. It includes survey responses from 2,000 people — of that amount, 50 percent of Australians under the age of 44 said they now own at least one cryptocurrency, with a notable trend toward bigger investments of at least AU$10,000 compared to previous responses of AU$100 or less in holdings.

Ether (ETH) was priced at US$2,314.49, up by 0.9 percent over the last 24 hours.

Altcoin price update

• XRP (XRP) was priced at US$1.42, up by 2.2 percent over 24 hours.

• Solana (SOL) was trading at US$92.50, trading 4.6 percent higher over the past 24 hours.

Today's crypto news to know

Coinbase bleeds in Q1, suffers AWS outage amid staff cut

Coinbase Global (NASDAQ:COIN) is taking a beating on multiple fronts.

The firm reported a US$394 million net loss for the first quarter, marking the exchange's second consecutive period in the red; it's also stark contrast to the US$66 million profit it posted during the same period last year. Coinbase's net revenue also took a hit, plunging 31 percent to US$1.4 billion and missing analysts' expectations entirely.

Much of this financial damage stems from a US$482 million unrealized loss on the company's cryptocurrency investments, directly tied to Bitcoin's recent price slide. Adding insult to injury, the exchange suffered a major hours-long outage almost immediately after releasing its earnings report. The disruption was triggered by an overheating Amazon Web Services (AWS) data center in Northern Virginia. It forced Coinbase to temporarily freeze trading by shifting markets into "cancel only" and "auction" modes before full service was restored.

Despite the chaos, CFO Alesia Haas said the company's underlying fundamentals are strong and highlighted growth in the US spot trading market. Thus far, however, the market isn't buying the optimism.

The underwhelming earnings follow an earlier announcement that Coinbase is slashing 14 percent of its workforce — roughly 700 employees — in an aggressive pivot toward artificial intelligence (AI) efficiency.

CEO Brian Armstrong noted in a recent company email that AI has dramatically accelerated workflows, allowing the firm to experiment with hyper-lean single-person teams to manage development.

Shares are down 15 percent since the start of the year and are currently 50 percent below their October peak.

Treasury pressures Binance over alleged sanctions evasion

The US government is once again dialing up the pressure on Binance, with the Department of the Treasury privately demanding strict compliance with the exchange's 2023 guilty plea monitoring program.

According to an exclusive by the Information, this aggressive push follows reports that over US$1 billion flowed through the platform to entities linked to Iran throughout 2024 and 2025. The geopolitical stakes prompted Senator Richard Blumenthal to launch a formal inquiry into the alleged money laundering and sanctions violations.

Binance, however, vehemently rejected the accusations, accusing the senator of relying on completely false information; it also swiftly slapped the Wall Street Journal with a defamation lawsuit over its coverage.

In response, the media outlet doubled down, reporting that the Department of Justice has already opened an official inquiry into the potential sanctions evasion.

Binance continues to firmly deny any wrongdoing or alleged retaliation against its internal investigators.

Mastercard taps Yellow Card to expand Stablecoin Payment

Mastercard (NYSE:MA) is making a play for the emerging digital economy by forging a strategic alliance with Yellow Card, a licensed stablecoin infrastructure provider focused heavily on Africa. The financial heavyweights plan to pioneer and deploy stablecoin-enabled payment solutions across Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The pilot program will heavily utilize security tools like the Mastercard Crypto Credential to rigorously test real-world applications. Specifically, the initiative is targeting high-friction financial areas such as cross-border remittances, business-to-business settlements, treasury management and digital loyalty ecosystems.

Joint working groups will actively collaborate with local banks and financial regulators to ensure the blockchain solutions are both highly secure and fully compliant. The initial rollout will target key financial hubs including Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates.

HIVE invests in Canada's first sovereign AI factory

HIVE Digital Technologies (TSXV:HIVE,NASDAQ:HIVE) subsidiary BUZZ High Performance Computing said on Friday that it will invest US$3.1 million over five years to upgrade the fiber optic network at its Grand Falls data center, located in New Brunswick. This project is a key step in transforming the 50 megawatt Tier III+ facility into Eastern Canada’s first sovereign AI factory for government and enterprise workloads

Partnering with a Canadian carrier, BUZZ will add dedicated optical wavelength services starting in Q3.

HIVE and BUZZ Chair Frank Holmes noted that “the fibre overbuild is the superhighway that moves that intelligence to customers. Power plus fibre plus GPUs equals an AI factory,” while CEO Aydin Kilic stressed that high-capacity connectivity provides essential redundancy and throughput.

Hut 8 soars on AI lease announcement

Hut 8 (TSX:HUT,NASDAQ:HUT) saw its highest gains in five years on Wednesday (May 6) after the Canadian Bitcoin miner's Q1 results showed that its quarterly revenue tripled from the previous year to US$71 million.

The company also signed a US$9.8 billion, 15 year lease with a confidential tenant to provide computing power from an AI facility located at a campus called Beacon Point in Nueces County, Texas.

Solana Accelerate brings institutional developments

This year's Solana Accelerate conference, held in Miami on Tuesday (May 5), brought several developments involving major payments companies and financial institutions.

Western Union (NYSE:WU) launched USDPT, a US dollar-denominated Solana stablecoin issued by federally regulated crypto bank Anchorage Digital. It first debuted in Bolivia and the Philippines, with plans to expand to over 40 countries by the end of 2026 through a consumer-facing product called Stable by Western Union.

Anchorage Digital also announced a plan for a cashless reserve model for stablecoin issuers, with JP Morgan Asset Management named as a potential provider of the tokenized instrument. Instead of holding static cash buffers, reserves are held in yield-bearing tokenized instruments on Solana. This structure will use just-in-time liquidity for redemptions, allowing issuers to earn yield on reserves that would otherwise sit idle.

Additionally, SoFi, a regulated US bank, announced plans to expand SoFiUSD to Solana, making it the first nationally chartered US bank to accept direct Solana network deposits.