Companies

Coinbase Doubles Staff, Aims to Become the NYSE for Cryptocurrencies

Georgi Georgiev | Sep 08, 2018 | 18:00

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Leading US cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has reportedly managed to double its staff members, thus hitting its 2018 target. At the same time, the company revealed its intentions to become the NYSE for cryptocurrencies.

500 Staff Employees

The San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange has doubled its staff members to 500 according to a report by Business Insider.

Earlier this year, Coinbase announced its plans to become a fully SEC-regulated broker-dealer. Furthermore, the company added a suite of products which facilitate institutional investments and also revealed its intentions to expand to Japan. Most recently, the cryptocurrency exchange announced that it is exploring a potential Bitcoin ETF.

It’s worth noting that, earlier this year, Coinbase’s customer service was met with a barrage of heavy criticism for being widely underprepared. Users of the cryptocurrency exchange managed to file a total of 134 pages worth of complaints with the SEC, pointing out a wide range of different issues. In response, the company announced its plans to open a new office in Portland, Oregon, which will be focused mainly on compliance, customer support, HR, and finance.

Serious Intentions

Speaking on stage at the TechCrunch Disrupt Conference in San Francisco, the CEO of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, said that he envisions a future where his company functions as the New York Stock Exchange for cryptocurrencies.

He also holds that the future will see a lot of companies which create their very own tokens and where Coinbase will function as a bridge between cryptocurrencies and fiat.

It makes sense that any company out there who has a cap table… should have their own token. Every open source project, every charity, potentially every fund or these new types of decentralized organizations [and] apps, they’re all going to have their own tokens. […] We want to be the bridge all over the world where people come and they take fiat currency and they can get it into these different cryptocurrencies.

Among other things, Armstrong also emphasized on the importance of regulatory clarity about whether the US government will regard the abovementioned tokens as securities or not.

What do you think of Coinbase’s progress? Don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments below! 

Images courtesy of Bitcoinist archives.