Coinbase Global heads into August earnings with a striking divergence: short sellers have been cutting exposure for three straight weeks, yet options traders just hit their most defensive posture of the past year.
The options signal is the sharpest data point this week. The put/call ratio jumped to 0.91 on Tuesday — a full two standard deviations above its 20-day average of 0.79, and the highest reading in the past 52 weeks. That's not a marginal overshoot; it's the most protective options positioning COIN has seen all year, arriving on a day the stock gained 2.6%. Demand for downside protection is running hot even as the price recovers.
Short interest tells a different story. Bears have been covering steadily. SI has fallen nearly 9% over the past week to 10.3% of free float — roughly 23.6 million shares — the lowest level in six weeks and well below the late-June peak above 27 million shares. That unwind continues the moderation noted in last week's note, when SI was sitting at 11.4%. The borrow market confirms there's no tension in the lending pool: cost to borrow has edged up 25% on the week but remains negligible at 0.46%, and availability is a relaxed 363% of short interest, meaning lenders hold more than three times the shares currently borrowed. This is not a squeeze setup. Short sellers are trimming into a recovering price, not fighting the tape.
The Street is also trimming — targets, not ratings. Four analyst actions hit the tape this week. Piper Sandler cut its target to $155 from $170 on Tuesday while keeping a Neutral rating, putting it the only analyst on record with a target below the current $161.50 price. Barclays, also Underweight, lowered to $99. Both bulls trimmed too: BTIG cut to $260 from $280, and Citizens lowered to $325 from $355, both maintaining positive ratings. The consensus mean target is $222, implying roughly 37% upside from here — but the direction of travel across four separate actions this week was uniformly downward. Bulls still outnumber bears at the analyst level, but they're growing more selective on valuation. The EV/EBITDA has compressed 1.4 turns over the past 30 days to 13.9x, and the PE has shed nearly 19 points in the same window to roughly 50x — a meaningful re-rating lower, though the stock remains far from cheap. The 30-day EPS momentum factor scores in the 96th percentile, a standout positive; EPS surprise, however, ranks at zero, suggesting recent beats have not landed cleanly relative to expectations.
Insider activity adds a footnote. Lead Independent Director Fred Wilson sold approximately 6,200 shares across multiple tranches on July 1, capturing proceeds near $760,000 in aggregate. The trades carry low significance scores and represent a tiny fraction of the register, so they don't change the picture — but they're the only insider activity in the 90-day window worth flagging. The net insider position over 90 days is marginally positive at just over 16,000 shares, so the overall insider read is neutral.
Among close peers, Robinhood gained 0.5% on the week while COIN lost 1.2%, and Galaxy Digital slipped 2.1%. Crypto-adjacent names have been moving in a tight band, with COIN broadly in line but underperforming the day traders slightly. The next earnings date is August 6. History from the last print shows a 2.8% one-day drop followed by a nearly 7% five-day loss — the prior result, by contrast, produced a 1.6% pop that extended to 7% over five days. Two data points don't make a pattern, but the asymmetry between bulls holding high targets and options traders buying puts suggests the August print is where the real positioning contest will play out.
The question going into that date is whether the steady short covering reflects genuine sentiment improvement — or simply position management ahead of a catalyst that still has the options market braced.
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