In 2017, the cost of bitcoin soared. One of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, Coinbase, was able to profit from the increase in interest because it was in the right place at the right time. Coinbase, however, isn’t content to take its cryptocurrency gains for granted. The company is investing more money in their master plan in order to maintain their competitive edge in the much larger cryptocurrency market. The business reported $1 billion in revenue up until 2017, and 20 million customers traded over $150 billion in assets.
The No. 1 cryptocurrency trading platform in the United States is Coinbase, a San Francisco-based company that has been very successful. 10 spot on the After failing to make the list the previous two years, the CNBC Disruptor list was released in 2018.
Coinbase has made no effort to avoid hiring top executives from the New York Stock Exchange, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn on their quest for success. Its full-time engineering staff has almost doubled in size this year.
Coinbase purchased Earn.com in April for $100 million. Users of this platform can send and receive digital currency while interacting with mass email campaigns and finishing small tasks. The company is currently preparing to hire Earns CEO and founder, a former venture capitalist with Andreessen Horowitz, as its first-ever chief technology officer.
When it set out to acquire Earn.Com, Coinbase estimated its own worth to be around $8 billion at the time. This amount exceeds the $1.6 billion estimate made during the most recent round of venture capital financing in the summer of 2017.
Coinbase declines to comment on its valuation despite receiving more than $225 million in funding from prestigious VC firms such as Union Square Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, as well as the New York Stock Exchange.
The New York Stock Exchange intends to launch its own cryptocurrency exchange to cater to the demands of institutional investors. A similar move is being considered by NYSE competitor Nasdaq.
• Competition is Coming
As rival businesses try to eat into Coinbase’s market share, the company is looking to other venture capital opportunities in an effort to create a barrier around itself.
As of January, Square, the business led by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, began trading cryptocurrencies on its Square Cash app, according to Dan Dolev, a Nomura instant analyst. This could threaten Coinbase’s exchange business.
Dolev estimated that in 2017, Coinbase’s average trading fees were around 1.8 percent. With such high fees, users might switch to more affordable exchanges.
In addition to securing its exchange business, Coinbase aims to serve institutional investors as a one-stop shop. The company announced an array of new products in an effort to draw in that white glove investor class. When entering the erratic cryptocurrency market, this group of investors has been especially cautious.
The company has released Coinbase Prime, The Coinbase Institutional Coverage Group, Coinbase Custody, and Coinbase Markets as its products.
According to Coinbase, there are billions of dollars in institutional capital available to invest in digital currency. $9 billion in customer assets are already in its custody.
Although Coinbase has never experienced a hack like some other major cryptocurrency exchanges, institutional investors are still concerned about security. According to the president and COO of Coinbase, the lack of a dependable custodian to protect their cryptocurrency assets was the driving force behind the launch of Coinbase custody in November.
• Currently Wall Street Shifts from Bashing Bit to Cryptocurrency Backer
The most recent data available from Autonomous Next Wall Street suggests that interest in cryptocurrencies is growing. While there were only 20 cryptocurrency hedge funds in existence in 2016, there are currently 287 of them. Even Goldman Sachs has established a cryptocurrency trading desk.
Coinbase Ventures, an incubator fund for early-stage startups operating in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space, has also been introduced by Coinbase. For future investments, Coinbase Ventures already has $15 billion accumulated. It revealed its first investment in Compound, a startup that enables cryptocurrency lending and borrowing with interest.
The business introduced Coinbase Commerce at the start of 2018, which enables businesses to accept the most popular cryptocurrencies as payment. BitPlay, another bitcoin startup, recently raised $40 million in venture capital. Bitcoin payments processed by BitPlay totaled more than $1 billion in 2017.
Cryptocurrency could eventually replace central banking authorities, according to blockchain technology proponents. Costs will be reduced as a result, and a decentralized financial solution will be produced.
• Regulatory Security Remains Intense
Coinbase has come under fire for keeping access to just four cryptocurrencies limited. However, they must proceed cautiously as the U.S. regulators deliberate on how to police certain uses of the technology.
The question of whether or not cryptocurrencies are securities that would fall under the jurisdiction of the Securities and Exchange Commission is one that cryptocurrency exchanges like Coinbase are concerned about. Since the SEC announced in March that it would apply security regulations to all cryptocurrency exchanges, Coinbase has admittedly been slow to add new coins.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Coinbase met with SEC representatives to register as an authorized brokerage and electronic trading platform. In such a scenario, Coinbase would find it simpler to support more coins and adhere to security regulations.