Idolized, Sold Off, Forgotten: What is Next for Coinbase, HelloFresh, and American Atomics

Coinbase: More Expensive Than Deutsche Börse on Its Very First Day

When Coinbase went public via a direct listing on Nasdaq on April 14, 2021, the euphoria knew no bounds. The reference price was USD 250, but at the opening, the share price shot up to USD 381 and climbed to just under USD 430. At its peak, the crypto exchange was thus worth more than USD 100 billion—more than three times the value of Deutsche Börse, which was worth about EUR 28 billion at the time. Even back then, skeptics asked what justification there was for a stock market newcomer with just nine years of corporate history—whose valuation was fueled exclusively by growth speculation—to so completely outshine a long-established, traditional corporation with a proven, crisis-proof business model that had matured over decades. The market initially failed to provide an answer—it knew only one direction: up.

When the business collapsed during the crypto winter of 2022, the stock plummeted to around USD 30, a drop of over 80%. Then, however, the pattern repeated itself. Buoyed by the next record-breaking run in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, Coinbase clawed its way back up in several waves starting in 2023 and hit a high of around USD 420 in July 2025—a level nearly matching its spectacular debut. Skepticism was forgotten, business was booming, and the stock was considered the easiest way to participate in the crypto boom. Now, however, disillusionment has returned. Since the summer of 2025, the stock has lost about 60% of its value and is now trading at just USD 147, close to its annual low. In the first quarter of 2026, the San Francisco-based company even slipped into the red. A crypto market that had shrunk by more than 20% dragged down transaction revenues, resulting in a net loss of USD 394 million.

Despite the latest price slump, the valuation still leaves little room for disappointment. Based on current consensus estimates, Coinbase is trading at a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of well over 200 for the current year. For 2027, analysts expect an average earnings per share (EPS) of USD 5.08, which would push the P/E ratio below 30. However, this calculation hinges entirely on the crypto market's recovery. What if the Bitcoin bear market persists and traders lose interest in crypto trading? A great deal of hope is still priced into the current valuation.

HelloFresh: When the Exception Is Prematurely Declared the Rule

Similar errors in reasoning to those seen with Coinbase also exist in Germany, albeit in a completely different guise. In the case of HelloFresh, the market uncritically extrapolated past growth rates into the future—except that this past represented a historic exception. During the COVID-19 pandemic, with restaurants closed and millions of people working from home, demand for the Berlin-based delivery service's meal kits exploded. The stock soared to just under EUR 96 and even made it onto the DAX—joining the ranks of Germany's 40 largest corporations, a group where, upon sober reflection, the meal-kit provider never really belonged. The mistake behind this is that anyone who extrapolates percentage growth rates from a company's early stages overlooks that the same growth rates cannot be replicated on a significantly larger revenue base. A company that achieves double-digit growth as a young startup would, as a billion-euro corporation, have to conquer markets that do not even exist. This is precisely the calculation that did not work out for HelloFresh. When the pandemic ended, restaurants reopened, and customers returned to their normal routines, but the growth story collapsed. Today, the stock is trading at only around EUR 4—a loss in value of over 95%—and has long since been relegated from the DAX to the SDAX small-cap index.

The surge in demand has given way to a structural decline. In 2025, revenue fell by EUR 900 million, resulting in a net loss of around EUR 93 million; the company is withdrawing from the loss-making markets of Italy and Spain. HelloFresh is only profitable if you generously adjust for one-time items and factor in a strict cost-cutting program—that is not what growth looks like. Above all, however, competition is intensifying from two fronts: On the one hand, more and more delivery services are entering the market, bringing ready-to-eat, hot meals directly to the doorstep. On the other hand, heavyweights like Amazon and Rewe have long been delivering groceries right to customers' doors, which generally makes the ingredients significantly cheaper than the HelloFresh subscription with its pre-portioned recipe boxes. The unique selling point that once made the Berlin-based company a success is melting away like ice at 40 degrees in the shade. That does not mean the company is doomed, however. It is consistently cutting costs and streamlining its portfolio. Analysts, on average, see a price target of around EUR 12 for the stock—plenty of room for a turnaround, given the current price. But this hope hinges entirely on whether HelloFresh can stabilize demand rather than merely slow its decline.

American Atomics: The Misunderstood Fuel Specialist

Coinbase and HelloFresh suffer from real dependencies that have simply been incorrectly extrapolated into the future. The third example illustrates the opposite case—a link that the market assumes exists, even though it does not yet. From a crypto exchange worth billions, to a former DAX-listed company, to the uranium minnow American Atomics, which is currently valued at just around CAD 17 million on its home exchange in Canada—the contrast could hardly be greater. And yet, all three share the same basic pattern: first hailed to the skies, then falling hard. In the case of American Atomics, the percentage drop was not quite as severe as HelloFresh's, but it was painful enough to keep investors at bay for the time being. In September 2025, the all-time high stood at CAD 0.98; today, the stock is trading at around CAD 0.25 (EUR 0.15 in Frankfurt)—just about a quarter of its price back then—and has been languishing in a sluggish sideways trend since the start of the year.

Yet the company is making great strides operationally. American Atomics is pursuing a strategy that CEO David Mitchell describes with the slogan "From Rock to Reactor." At its core, the goal is to build a vertically integrated uranium value chain in the US, spanning exploration, processing, conversion, and enrichment. At the heart of this are two projects on the historic Colorado Plateau—Blue Streak and the flagship Big Indian project in Lisbon Valley, whose largely unexplored eastern flank is believed to harbor deposits mirroring those on the historically productive western side, where approximately 78 million pounds of triuranooctide (U₃O₈) lie in the ground. The plan calls not only for the mining of the radioactive material but also for a central uranium mill that, in partnership with CVMR, will process ore from several regional mines.

Two recent announcements underscore that the Vancouver-based company is on the right track. On June 1, the first NI 43-101-compliant resource estimate for Blue Streak was published, reporting 109,700 pounds of triuranooctide in the "Measured" and "Indicated" categories. This is the main component of the feedstock known as "yellowcake," from which nuclear fuel for power plants is produced. On top of that, there are three exploration targets with further upside potential and a vanadium deposit as the icing on the cake. Just two days later, on June 3, American Atomics brought in a political heavyweight to head its newly formed advisory board: Tomas J. Philipson, the former acting chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, who at the time was a member of the US Nuclear Fuel Working Group. As an official member of the US Department of Energy's nuclear consortium, American Atomics is already directly at the helm of fuel policy in Washington.

The Major Misjudgment: No Dependence on the Uranium Price

This is precisely where the key difference lies compared to Coinbase and HelloFresh. When the spot price of uranium recently fell from over USD 100 to around USD 86 per pound, American Atomics was also punished—as if its stock were a leveraged warrant on the commodity. But this supposed dependence is an illusion. Unlike Coinbase, whose profits rise and fall with crypto prices, the uranium price will not impact American Atomics' business for the foreseeable future. In reality, the stock is driven by something entirely different: drilling results, permits, partnerships, and political tailwinds—in short, its own news cycle.

A correlation with the price of uranium could theoretically arise once mining, processing, and sales are up and running—but even then, only to a limited extent. Canada's leading producer, Cameco, for example, points out that the price—and thus its own profit and loss statement—is determined by long-term supply contracts negotiated directly with customers; the spot price serves largely as a reference rather than a true valuation anchor. So if American Atomics' stock were actually to correlate with the price of uranium one day, the Vancouver-based company would have long since outgrown its current penny stock status. The path ahead remains volatile: its small market capitalization and low trading liquidity are likely to continue producing sharp price swings—both downward and upward—depending on operational progress. However, even a single positive catalyst could be sufficient to trigger a full revaluation.

The Final Assessment: A Bright Future or a Falling Knife?

Three battered stocks, three stories of euphoria and disillusionment—and in the end, the same question: buying opportunity or a falling knife? Coinbase remains a bet on the crypto market. Those who believe in the next Bitcoin bull run will find here a kind of leveraged security with no knock-out threshold and no maturity date, but they will have to accept a valuation that leaves no room for disappointment. HelloFresh is a turnaround bet on the idea that this shrinking pandemic winner will return to a stable business—with upside potential if the turnaround succeeds, but further downside risk if it does not. Finally, American Atomics is the true outlier in this trio: a small-cap stock that is unfairly judged by the price of uranium and whose fate depends solely on its own operational progress. The leverage is greatest here, because with a market capitalization of only about CAD 17 million, a single piece of good news can give the share price a significant boost. The most important lesson common to all three is this: yesterday's hype is no argument for tomorrow. Anyone getting in now should do so not because these stocks were once in demand, but because their future prospects are plausible.