Crypto equities scorecard, Q3 2026

Scope and the quarter in brief

This scorecard tracks 15 US-listed companies whose results or balance sheets are tied directly to digital assets. They are grouped into exchanges and brokers (Coinbase, Robinhood, Galaxy Digital, Bullish, Gemini), stablecoin and payments (Circle), digital asset treasury companies (Strategy, BitMine Immersion, SharpLink Gaming, Forward Industries), miners that remain primarily focused on bitcoin production (MARA, Riot, CleanSpark) and two others (Figure Technology and eToro). Miners that have repositioned toward AI and high-performance computing hosting (IREN, TeraWulf, Cipher, Core Scientific, Hut 8) are excluded here and covered in the BlockWest AI equities scorecard.

Q3 2026 was a recovery quarter for digital assets. Bitcoin rose from about $58,600 at the end of June to about $83,600 at the end of September, a 42.7% gain. Ether rose 71.0% and solana 60.5% over the same window. Most of the move came after mid August, when bitcoin was still near $63,000. US large caps were nearly flat by comparison, with SPY up 2.1% in price terms.

The 15 stocks had a combined estimated market value of about $287B on September 30. Robinhood (about $101B), Strategy (about $59B) and Coinbase (about $49B) account for roughly 73% of that total. On a market-cap-weighted basis the group returned about 32.1% in Q3 (weights at September 30 values), ahead of the equal-weighted 25.3%, mainly because Strategy, the second-largest name, outperformed.

Scorecard: returns and market value

Treasury companies outran the assets they hold

The four treasury companies were the top four performers in the group. BitMine (BMNR), which holds ether, returned 98.6%, against 71.0% for ETH itself. SharpLink (SBET), also an ether treasury, returned 93.3%. Forward Industries (FWDI), which holds solana, returned 84.8% against 60.5% for SOL. Strategy (MSTR) returned 76.1%, about 1.8 times the 42.7% gain in bitcoin.

In the first half, three of the four (MSTR, BMNR, SBET) fell further than the asset they hold. Year to date, the treasury group is roughly flat (MSTR +0.8%, BMNR -2.7%, SBET +3.8%, FWDI +18.0%), which is close to or slightly better than BTC (-4.6%), ETH (-9.6%) and SOL (-5.2%). In other words, Q3 largely reversed a first-half discount rather than creating a new premium.

Balance sheet data help frame the valuations:

• Strategy disclosed holdings of 848,000 BTC as of October 4, 2026, after buying 334 BTC from October 1 to 4, which implies 847,666 BTC at September 30. It reported a digital asset carrying value of $70.82B at September 30 and a Q3 digital asset gain of $20.91B. Its estimated equity market value of $58.8B on September 30 was 0.83 times that carrying value. This simple ratio ignores Strategy’s debt, preferred stock and cash, so it is not a full net asset value comparison.
• BitMine reported 5,983,940 ETH as of September 20, 2026, with 85% staked, plus $714M of cash and securities. Valued at the September 30 ETH price used in this report, that ether was worth about $16.1B, close to BitMine’s estimated $15.9B market value on the same day. Holdings and prices are from different dates, so this is indicative only.

With equity values near or below the value of the crypto they hold, the Q3 outperformance looks more like a recovery from discounted levels than a return to large premiums.

Beta to bitcoin

To measure sensitivity, we regressed each stock’s daily log returns over the 64 trading days in Q3 against bitcoin’s daily log returns. A beta of 1.5 means a 1.5% average move per 1% move in BTC.

Three patterns stand out. First, treasury companies combined the highest betas (1.56 to 1.73) with the highest correlations (0.61 to 0.81), so they behaved as leveraged bitcoin or ether proxies, and a rising market rewarded them most. Second, exchanges and Circle sat in a middle band, with betas of 1.13 to 1.50 and correlations of 0.50 to 0.74. Coinbase was the most bitcoin-sensitive exchange. Third, the bitcoin miners and eToro had the weakest links to BTC: Riot’s correlation was 0.35 and its beta 0.90. For miners, a 42.7% rise in the coin they produce did not translate into share gains, which suggests company-specific factors dominated; this report does not attribute the decline to a single cause.

Measured betas also reflect timing. Crypto trades around the clock while US equities close at 4:00 p.m. Eastern time, and the BTC series here uses daily UTC closes. That mismatch tends to understate correlations, so the figures are best read relative to each other rather than as precise hedge ratios.

Exchanges: rising prices, diverging earnings

Second-quarter results, reported at the end of July, showed how differently the exchange businesses are positioned. Coinbase reported Q2 revenue of $1.22B, down 14% from Q1, with transaction revenue of $599M and subscription and services revenue of $555M, including $292M of stablecoin revenue. It posted a net loss of $359M and adjusted EBITDA of $208M. Its Q3 outlook called for transaction revenue of $500M to $580M. The stock fell 10.6% on July 31, the day after the release, before recovering with bitcoin in August and September to finish the quarter up 27.5%.

Robinhood reported record Q2 net revenue of $1.31B, up 32% year over year, and net income of $573M, up 48%. Crypto revenue fell 38% to $100M, but prediction markets revenue of $156M exceeded it. Robinhood’s diversification made it the least bitcoin-sensitive of the large exchanges (beta 1.13) and it returned 12.2% in Q3, the smallest gain among the exchanges that rose. Year to date it is nearly flat (-0.5%), well ahead of Coinbase (-17.6%).

Among newer listings, Bullish (BLSH) returned 48.9% and was the only exchange to beat bitcoin. Gemini (GEMI) rose 21.1% in Q3 but remains down 48.0% year to date, with a market value of about $670M. Galaxy Digital (GLXY) fell 16.8% in the quarter, the weakest of the exchange group, although it is still up 1.7% year to date.

Circle (CRCL), the stablecoin issuer, returned 31.2%. Its Q2 total revenue and reserve income was $701M, up 7% year over year, with net income from continuing operations of $48M and USDC in circulation of $73.3B at quarter end, up 19% year over year.

Year to date: a rally that has not repaired the year

Despite the strong quarter, the asset backdrop remains negative for 2026. Bitcoin was down 4.6% and ether 9.6% year to date at September 30, while SPY was up 11.8%. Seven of the 15 stocks were down year to date. The largest year-to-date declines were Gemini (-48.0%), Figure (-29.4%), eToro (-26.8%) and Coinbase (-17.6%). The best year-to-date performers were the three bitcoin miners, Riot (+59.0%), CleanSpark (+27.3%) and MARA (+26.2%), all of which gained strongly in the first half and gave back part of that in Q3.

Methodology

Period: Q3 2026 returns run from the June 30, 2026 close to the September 30, 2026 close. Year-to-date returns run from the December 31, 2025 close to the September 30, 2026 close. All returns are price returns and exclude dividends; SPY is shown on a price basis for consistency.

Equity prices: daily closing prices for each ticker were taken from stockanalysis.com price history data. Each June 30 and September 30 close was cross-checked against the prior day’s close and the reported daily percentage change, and all matched. Coinbase closes were also confirmed on its public history page.

Crypto prices: BTC, ETH and SOL prices are CoinGecko daily USD prices at 00:00 UTC, used as the close of the prior UTC day (for example, the October 1, 00:00 UTC price is the September 30 close). As a cross-check, the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) returned 42.2% in Q3 and -4.7% year to date, consistent with the BTC figures.

Market capitalization: stockanalysis.com reports market value as of October 5, 2026. September 30 values were estimated by scaling that figure by the ratio of the September 30 close to the October 5 close, which assumes no change in shares outstanding over those three trading days.

Beta and correlation: computed in Python from 64 daily log returns between June 30 and September 30, 2026, using sample covariance of each stock’s returns with BTC returns divided by the sample variance of BTC returns. Group averages are simple equal-weighted means. The cap-weighted figure uses September 30 estimated market values as weights. Fundamental figures come from company filings and releases as cited. This report is for information only and is not investment advice.

Sources

• Stock Analysis, Coinbase (COIN) price history; same source used for all 15 tickers and SPY (as of October 5, 2026)
• Stock Analysis, market cap pages for each ticker (as of October 5, 2026)
• CoinGecko, bitcoin, ether and solana daily USD prices (as of October 6, 2026)
• Coinbase Q2 2026 shareholder deck, Form 8-K (as of July 30, 2026)
• Robinhood Q2 2026 results summary (as of July 30, 2026)
• Circle Q2 2026 results release (as of August 5, 2026)
• Strategy Form 8-K, bitcoin holdings and Q3 digital asset update (as of October 4, 2026)
• Blockonomi, BitMine ETH holdings update (as of September 20, 2026)