2018-7-27 20:03 |
Coinbase the “Google of Crypto”?
Those new to the cryptocurrency community may find it difficult to navigate around. To make participation much more user-friendly, especially for those who are without technical skills, a new platform released a new application. The platform, Coinbase, is responsible for a simple and free application that allows its users to buy and sell Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash.
To date, the application has a massive user base that continues to grow. Just in May, the user base has been reported as 20 million users – which is twice as many as other popular financial platforms. In addition to the growth of its user base, the company has grown as well. Coinbase has opened offices in cities such as Chicago, Portland, Japan, and New York and to provide support for its growth, it has reported that its support team has been increased by 150 percent.
Aside from growth involving its application and business, the platform is now offering a wider-range of products and services and that can be used by institutional investors as well. Although Coinbase has shown impressive growth, its corporate remains positive amid the changes. The platform’s CEO, Brian Armstrong, stated in a post that:
“Focusing on people is arguably the highest leverage activity to spend time on as CEO, since great people build great products, which leads to great profits (in that order).”
The company’s overall goal, and that of its CEO, is that it become the “Google of Crypto.” It may just be that its most recent moves enable it to do so. For instance, the company has made some impressive acquisitions over the past year.
One of its largest and most recent acquisitions was of Keystone Capital. Coinbase’s overall purpose in securing Keystone Capital was to become an SEC-regulated broker dealer. According to Coinbase’s President and Chief Operating Officer Asiff Hirji,
“If approved, Coinbase will soon be capable of offering blockchain-based securities, under the oversight of the US Securities and Exchange (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) . . . this step forward is being made possible by our acquisitions o fa broker-dealer license.”
Additionally, Coinbase acquired Paradex, “a relay platform that will allow our customers to trade hundreds of tokens directly from their wallet.”
Coinbase has also established a strong social media presence and was one of the first platform to present its advertisements on Facebook’s platform. Allowing Coinbase’s advertisements suggests that Facebook may be planning a larger influence in the crypto space. Facebook recently launched a blockchain group to explore crypto applications on the platform. It may even be the case that Facebook will use Coinbase’s infrastructure to distribute an manage its own cryptocurrency – but that would certainly be a ways away, if it does happen. Neither Facebook nor Coinbase have confirmed this type of partnership either.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently stated:
“With the rise of a small number of big tech companies . . . many people now believe technology only centralizes power rather than decentralizes it . . . there are important counter-trends to this – like encryption and cryptocurrency – that take power from centralized systems and put it back into people’s hands. I’m interest to go deeper and to study the positive and negative aspects of these technologies, and how to best use them in our services.”
Although Coinbase has exhibited positive growth in the past year, it has not been without its setbacks. The platform is known for its lack of sufficient support staff and inefficiencies. Customer reviews of the platform support this position. Further, there have been issues of insider trading concerning its adoption of Bitcoin cash.
At the end of the day though, despite the issues, the platform is still pushing forward to become a significant player in the cryptocurrency industry.
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