What happened

Coinbase Global (COIN 5.68%) was a bright spot in an otherwise dreary February as its stock price rose 10.9% for the month, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. The stock is trading at about $60 per share as of March 2, up roughly 82.7% year to date.

Coinbase far outpaced the major market indexes, which were all down in February. The S&P 500 fell 2.6% in February while the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 4.2% and the Nasdaq Composite was down 1.1% for the month.

So what

It was a pretty wild month for cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. The month started with a federal judge throwing out a class action suit brought against Coinbase for allegedly selling unregistered securities and not registering as a broker-dealer. The judge said Coinbase, as an exchange, had no direct role in the transactions, and threw it out with prejudice.

The stock dropped sharply a few days later, however, along with the entire crypto space, after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Payward Ventures and Payward Trading, which run the Kraken crypto exchange, with failing to register their staking-as-a-service program. The company agreed to stop offering or selling securities through crypto asset staking services. "Today's action should make clear to the marketplace that staking-as-a-service providers must register and provide full, fair, and truthful disclosure and investor protection," SEC Chair Gary Gensler said.

Coinbase's stock price dropped about 14% on the news. While the company has a staking program, it is both smaller than Kraken's and fundamentally different, as its staking services are not securities. "We do not believe we have violated any securities laws: Coinbase staking products are not securities, USD Coin (USDC) is not a security," company officials said in the fourth-quarter shareholder letter.

Coinbase released its fourth-quarter earnings on Feb. 21, and its stock price got a bump as it beat earnings and revenue estimates. The company posted net revenue of $605 million, which was better than estimates and up from $576 million in the third quarter, but down from $2.5 billion a year ago. It posted a net loss of $557 million, or negative $2.46 per share.

Now what

There was some more good news as Wells Fargo, Barclays, and Piper Sandler all raised their price targets for Coinbase following earnings. 

Richard Repetto at Piper Sandler, who raised the target to $70 from $65, said that while more regulation is likely coming to the crypto space in 2023, Coinbase has done a good job of getting on the right side of it, reported The Fly. The company echoed that in its shareholder letter.

"We expect 2023 to be a year of regulatory focus and we believe our strong foundation will make us a net beneficiary of this new environment," Coinbase officials wrote in the letter.

Still, there is no telling how more regulations could shake the market, and by extension Coinbase, in the near term.