Coinbase, established in 2012 has seen off a strong Q4 performance despite the market crash experienced globally. The firm, headed by a former Airbnb employee, posted a strong showing while wading through a sea of controversy, especially as it began to add several new crypto assets to its portfolio.
The San Francisco-headquartered company was established as a consumer-centric exchange, which sported a simple (near-)one-click interface, but Coinbase is now reaping the benefits of always trying to stay ahead of the game by keeping one eye on innovation on the lucrative sector it competes in. And amid all the drama, as digital assets like Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Litecoin (LTC) — Coinbase’s lifeblood — continue to lose value, the firm has only doubled-down on its expansion and development efforts.
Outperforming the Competition
Brian Armstrong, the passionate yet sometimes controversial chief of Coinbase, recently issued a note celebrating the fact that the company has not only survived but thrived in the recent bearish downturn.
The American firm started Q4 of 2018 on a high note securing $300 million in funding from Tiger Global, Y Combinator, A16Z, Polychain Cap, and a number of other venture groups. Coinbase was valued at a staggering $8 billion, making the firm arguably the most valuable company in the entirety of the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Coinbase has been riding the wave since the $300 million cash boost. The funding was explained to be allocated towards global expansion efforts, institutional services, and applications for crypto. As an attempt at transparency, Armstrong’s letter was made public, explaining the launch of a number of pertinent products by the firm including support for Circle-backed USD Coin, a revamped version of Earn, PayPal withdrawals, and crypto-to-crypto trading, to name a few.
Coinbase also added a dozen crypto assets to its platform, to keep up in the fast-paced ecosystem, with notable additions including ZCash (ZEC), Basic Attention Token (BAT), Maker (MKR), and 0x (ZRX). Dan Romero, vice-president of the firm explained through a podcast that Coinbase’s clientele has begun to clamor for crypto asset support, presumably catalyzing the recent listings.
The firm did not just stop with the addition of the aforementioned coins, but also marked their foray into six new sectors, making the power of cryptocurrencies available to millions more in their operating markets. The firm’s forward-thinking chief also explained that his firm made a number of investments into organizations such as Alchemy, Securitize, Starkware, Nomics, and Abacus, gearing up for a strong showing in the coming quarters.
Armstrong made his excitement and gratitude more than apparent when he wrote: “I continue to be so impressed by the ability of this team to execute on aggressive timelines, all while solving problems that have never been solved before. This was a year of scaling Coinbase up to meet the demand of the market and efficiently executing to serve our customers.”
A Bright Outlook
The firm seems to have a great year ahead of them as a shown by a survey from Coinbase. The users polled positively on the appeal of a subscription model, which would reduce “maker” and “taker” fees for Pro traders while offering perks for premium members.. If implemented, this program would be the first of its kind in the industry and would likely attract a lot more users with its apparent ease of use.
In a series of tweets, the CEO of the firm confessed his love for Bitcoin recently, “Bitcoin is one of the most important inventions of all time and has launched a global movement. It’s awesome to see an entire ecosystem spring up around it, but Bitcoin is my first love” he went on “I believe we’re still at the beginning. The white paper signaled the start of a movement and the full promise of Bitcoin is still yet to be realized.”
Zeeshan Feroz, the chief at Coinbase’s U.K. branch, also expressed a positive outlook on the industry. He said: “I think you can expect a more aggressive approach to us adding more countries in the coming months. Much of what we’re doing here is driven by customer needs and what we’re seeing in the market… I think if you look at last year, a lot of the focus was on people who bought crypto from an investment point of view and a lot of projects raised a ludicrous amount of money as a result of that.”
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