Galaxy made 323 million in one quarter; the trading business lost 9 million.
$GLXY reported net profit of 323 million dollars this quarter. The part it earned from crypto trading, lending, and asset management posted adjusted EBITDA of negative 9 million.
The money wasn’t made by trading.
Not even a little.
Put the three segments side by side and it’s obvious. Treasury and corporate contributed 395 million, data centers 69 million, digital assets negative 9 million. Add them up and you get 455 million, exactly.
Ninety percent of the profit came from its own balance sheet. It had nothing to do with trading.
A lot of people see “a crypto investment bank made 300 million net in a quarter” and think the business is recovering, but this industry’s gross margin is paper thin. For the full quarter, total revenue plus trading gains was 8.7 billion dollars, trading fees were 8 billion, leaving just 700 million in between.
The digital assets segment’s gross profit was 71 million. After payroll, compliance, and systems, it ended up at negative 9 million EBITDA. Gone.
8.7 billion in turnover, 6.5% gross margin, and it still lost money. Where’s the problem? It doesn’t rely on spread to make money at all.
Market making and lending survive on razor-thin margins; the bigger the volume, the thinner it gets. What really makes money is the coins on the balance sheet.
Page 5 of the press release breaks those coins out. Bitcoin: 538 million. Ethereum: 128 million.
The company’s total equity is 3 billion, and these positions alone account for 1.7 billion.
So most of the 300-plus million this quarter came from revaluation. That’s all there is to it.
Here’s the flip side. Of the three segments, the only one that truly brings in cash is data centers. Rent revenue was 69 million, but this quarter it spent 757 million on capex, and liabilities rose from 1.5 billion to 5.3 billion.
The part that’s making money is burning cash to expand, while the profitable part is just unrealized gains. Pretty fragile.
This is where I can’t be certain. Of that 395 million in Treasury, how much has actually been realized? The press release only gives segment EBITDA and doesn’t break out realized versus unrealized. It sounds reasonable, but I can’t prove it.
One thing can be checked. On September 30, Bitcoin closed at 83,576.90; now it’s 80,217, down 4%. Part of this quarter’s revaluation profit will have to be given back at the start of next quarter.
What really matters here is the structure. A company branded around crypto trading doesn’t make money from trading; it makes money from the coins it holds and the data centers it builds.
Any business whose valuation is tied to asset appreciation eventually becomes leverage on that price.
Because volume can be fabricated, spreads can be compressed, but coin prices don’t answer to you.
$BTC current price 80217, down 0.29%; the 80,000 level still hasn’t held today.
Source: Galaxy Digital Inc. 8-K Exhibit EX-99.1 press release, filed today in SEC EDGAR
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1859392/000185939226000108/glxy-20260930xpressrelease.htm
$GLXY reported net profit of 323 million dollars this quarter. The part it earned from crypto trading, lending, and asset management posted adjusted EBITDA of negative 9 million.
The money wasn’t made by trading.
Not even a little.
Put the three segments side by side and it’s obvious. Treasury and corporate contributed 395 million, data centers 69 million, digital assets negative 9 million. Add them up and you get 455 million, exactly.
Ninety percent of the profit came from its own balance sheet. It had nothing to do with trading.
A lot of people see “a crypto investment bank made 300 million net in a quarter” and think the business is recovering, but this industry’s gross margin is paper thin. For the full quarter, total revenue plus trading gains was 8.7 billion dollars, trading fees were 8 billion, leaving just 700 million in between.
The digital assets segment’s gross profit was 71 million. After payroll, compliance, and systems, it ended up at negative 9 million EBITDA. Gone.
8.7 billion in turnover, 6.5% gross margin, and it still lost money. Where’s the problem? It doesn’t rely on spread to make money at all.
Market making and lending survive on razor-thin margins; the bigger the volume, the thinner it gets. What really makes money is the coins on the balance sheet.
Page 5 of the press release breaks those coins out. Bitcoin: 538 million. Ethereum: 128 million.
The company’s total equity is 3 billion, and these positions alone account for 1.7 billion.
So most of the 300-plus million this quarter came from revaluation. That’s all there is to it.
Here’s the flip side. Of the three segments, the only one that truly brings in cash is data centers. Rent revenue was 69 million, but this quarter it spent 757 million on capex, and liabilities rose from 1.5 billion to 5.3 billion.
The part that’s making money is burning cash to expand, while the profitable part is just unrealized gains. Pretty fragile.
This is where I can’t be certain. Of that 395 million in Treasury, how much has actually been realized? The press release only gives segment EBITDA and doesn’t break out realized versus unrealized. It sounds reasonable, but I can’t prove it.
One thing can be checked. On September 30, Bitcoin closed at 83,576.90; now it’s 80,217, down 4%. Part of this quarter’s revaluation profit will have to be given back at the start of next quarter.
What really matters here is the structure. A company branded around crypto trading doesn’t make money from trading; it makes money from the coins it holds and the data centers it builds.
Any business whose valuation is tied to asset appreciation eventually becomes leverage on that price.
Because volume can be fabricated, spreads can be compressed, but coin prices don’t answer to you.
$BTC current price 80217, down 0.29%; the 80,000 level still hasn’t held today.
Source: Galaxy Digital Inc. 8-K Exhibit EX-99.1 press release, filed today in SEC EDGAR
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1859392/000185939226000108/glxy-20260930xpressrelease.htm
