Coinbase

The last time ETH Denver was held in person, ETH’s market cap stood at $30B, DeFi hadn’t had its breakout summer, and few people outside of the 6,000 attendees knew what an NFT was. Fast forward to 2022 and a 10x in ETH’s market cap, the rise of NFTs, a DAO resurgence, and a year where Ethereum did more transactional volume than Visa, a record crowd of 12,000 in Colorado were met with an entirely different energy.

What had historically been an event for hackers and coders received an infusion of artists and creatives, as well as a governor, a former presidential candidate, and a heavy dose of EDM — a reflection of Ethereum and crypto’s growing awareness within the mainstream.

Despite the new faces, ETH Denver retained its authentic quirky disposition, complete with bright neon colors and Vitalik dressed as a “Bufficorn”. Beyond a lone Doge Lambo, the main event was mostly free of flash and still felt authentically Ethereum.

Attendee sentiment

Even amidst a 50% market drawdown from late November highs and multi-hour long check-ins in the frigid cold, builder energy was sky high. Where Ethereum was still finding its footing during last ETH Denver, this year’s event featured heavy discussion across all of the new verticals thriving today: DeFi, NFTs, DAOs, gaming, and more.

It was also apparent just how much private capital is still flowing into crypto, undeterred by macro market headwinds: with seed stage deals raising at a minimum $50M and seed token rounds going for $100M+ (no shipped code needed), one might argue too much. In either case, it’s clearly a builders market.

Real Politik

In addition to investor and builder excitement, there was also a noticeable presence from mainstream politicians: most notably, Colorado Governor Jared Polis and the Forward Party’s Andrew Yang. With crypto and Web3’s growing popularity, it seems many in government are seeing the upside to embracing this emerging constituency.

In addition to posing with Vitalik, Gov. Polis announced during the conference that Colorado will accept crypto as payment for taxes in addition to making Colorado, “the first digital state” with favorable regulations for the crypto economy. This mirrors the positions of other crypto-forward governors like Miami’s Francis Suarez and New York’s Eric Adams.

In a surprise appearance, Andrew Yang took the stage with Bankless’s David Hoffman, sharing his thoughts on why Web3 represents “the biggest anti-povery opportunity of our time.” His appearance came on the heels of his Lobby3 initiative, which will advocate for thoughtful regulation in Washington to support crypto innovation.

All of the while, Biden’s executive order on crypto regulation loomed large (however if you bumped into CoinCenter’s Neeraj he would have told you that the EO is nothing to panic over). Either way, it’s clear that crypto has entered the fore of the American political discussion.

NFT Mania

Beyond the bullish builder sentiment, private investor froth, and political participation, NFTs were everywhere in Denver. NFT art installations, musicians performing with their NFTs on display, and some events even requiring NFTs to gain entry (shoutout ecodao).

POAP (Proof of Attendance Protocol) NFTs, which give people digital mementos commemorating attendance of a particular event by scanning a QR code, were particularly pervasive. The inventive ways different projects found to engage via POAPs suggests that they may be the next mainstream crypto community use case.

If you were mingling at any of the NFT centric events, odds are you bumped into a former FAANG employee newly entering the NFT space. A sign that despite the macro market downturn, NFT mania is still in full swing and the brain drain from Web2 to Web3 continues.

Signs of DAObt

Following a year that saw ConstitutionDAO capture global attention, DAOs have regained much of the crypto limelight. Conference booths were packed with projects building DAO infrastructure and discussions on how decentralized autonomous can rewire the world were prevalent.

While DAO enthusiasm was evident, many noted that DAO participants were starting to show signs of fatigue with many DAOs struggling to retain contributors. Joseph Delong, former CTO of SushiSwap who notably left the decentralized project, gave a memorable talk on why DAOs simply need more structure to be effective (also discussed in our recent podcast with Orca Protocol’s Julia Rosenberg).

With over 1B in startup equity for DAO tooling and under 200 DAOs, it begs the question: is there enough DAO to go around?

The long term outlook of DAOs seems to be bright, but the industry is still grappling with how exactly DAOs should function. Given that there’s no standardization around DAO operation, it’s hard to know what tools they actually need. As such, the DAO infrastructure sector will likely see a lot of turbulence over the near to medium term.

The Merge

After years in the making, experts stated that Ethereum’s transition to proof-of-stake is expected to happen in Q2 or Q3 this year. As a quick refresh, Ethereum’s PoS chain (the beacon chain) has been operational since December 2020, however all applications still live on the proof of work chain. The merge basically consists of migrating these applications to the PoS chain.

As such, the merge was a major point of discussion for devs this year. If all goes well, ETH holders won’t have to do anything, but developers and infrastructure providers are in preparation mode. This includes running testnets and conducting dry runs in anticipation for the real thing.

The Ethereum ecosystem is making a big bet on PoS in conjunction with layer 2 scaling solutions (rollups). In a post-merge world, Ethereum will transition to become a settlement layer for large transactions while most user activity is pushed to layer 2. This will create an environment where all EVM compatible layer 1s compete with ETH L2s for users and developer mindshare.

Also prepping for the merge, is Coinbase Cloud, which powers a portion of Coinbase’s ETH staking product as well as node infrastructure for many players in the space. Cloud developers showed up in force hosting a hackathon, a variety of panels, workshops, and a party for over 500 attendees. Learn more about how Coinbase Cloud is thinking about client diversity ahead of the merge here.

A builders market

In the days since ETH Denver wrapped, the market drawdown intensified as Russia escalated the situation in Ukraine. While crypto has rebounded, markets will likely remain shaky given the uncertainty of the current geopolitical situation. Regardless, teams building the next generation of Ethereum and Web3 remain well funded and the building will continue.

As evident by the increased diversity of both projects and participants at this year’s conference, what gets built on Ethereum will keep venturing out in a myriad of new exciting directions.

Around the Block from Coinbase Ventures sheds light on key trends in crypto. Written by Justin Mart

Top Reads & talks from ETH Denver

• ETH Denver winners recap — Lane Rettig
• Andrew Yang with David Hoffman
• The road to Ethereum 2.0
• Ethereum’s Old Guard Meets the Newbies at ETHDenver — The Defiant
• 8 Things you missed at ETH Denver — Bankless
• The Case for Hierarchies in DAOs — Joseph Delong
• What devs discussed at ETH Denver — Tracy Wang, CoinDesk

Top tweets on ETH Denver

• DAO tooling to see heavy turnover — @carlcortright
• Talent and capital is flowing into crypto from Wall Street & Web3 — @VivekVentures
• ETH Denver observations — @davidsaidthat_
• No one knows what tools DAOs actually need — @QwQiao
• The state of DeFi — @SeanLippel
• How datablobs can enable 100x rollup capacity — @protolambda

This website does not disclose material nonpublic information pertaining to Coinbase or Coinbase Venture’s portfolio companies.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this website are those of the authors who may be associated persons of Coinbase, Inc., or its affiliates (“Coinbase”) and who do not represent the views, opinions and positions of Coinbase. Information is provided for general educational purposes only and is not intended to constitute investment or other advice on financial products. Coinbase makes no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, timeliness, suitability, or validity of any information on this website and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. Unless otherwise noted, all images provided herein are the property of Coinbase. This website contains links to third-party websites or other content for information purposes only. Third-party websites are not under the control of Coinbase, and Coinbase is not responsible for their contents. The inclusion of any link does not imply endorsement, approval or recommendation by Coinbase of the site or any association with its operators.

Ventures’ Takeaways from ETH Denver was originally published in The Coinbase Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Coinbase Exchange fee updates — March 2022

On Tuesday, March 1, 2022, Coinbase Exchange will implement a new fee structure designed to increase the depth and liquidity of our markets while simplifying our fee models.

In order to respond to client needs, Coinbase periodically updates pricing. All fee updates are shared prior to being implemented.

These latest updates help align maker discounting across our entire fee table and encourages passive orders amongst users in the lowest tiers. In addition, we have simplified our fee model by merging our highest volume tiers.

New Fee Schedule

The calculation for volume tiers will continue to be based on trailing 30 day volume.

Coinbase Exchange fee updates — March 2022 was originally published in The Coinbase Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This report updates on what WEFUZZ, Coinbase Crypto Community Fund grant recipient, has been working on over the first part of their year-long Crypto development grant. This specifically covers their work on a decentralized, crowdsourced security audit and bug bounty solution.

By WEFUZZ, Coinbase Crypto Community Fund grant recipient

Introduction

WEFUZZ implements a fully decentralized, crowdsourced security audit and bug bounty solution: a set of smart contracts that allow developers and companies to get their smart contracts, blockchains, websites, etc., audited by the auditors and hackers community. With this work, WEFUZZ aims to become the *Hacker DAO*.

What is Crowdsourcing?

Crowdsourcing is a sourcing model in which individuals or organizations obtain goods or services — including ideas, voting, micro-tasks etc., from a large, relatively open, and rapidly evolving group of participants. Companies like Uber, Gitcoin and GoJek already use this model. Crowdsourcing model offers improved costs, speed, quality, flexibility, scalability, and diversity.

The Need for a decentralized crowdsourced platform?

The traditional crowdsourcing system consists mainly of three roles: requesters, workers (auditors in our case), and a centralized system. Requesters submit tasks to be completed through the crowdsourcing system. A set of auditors complete this task and submit solutions to the crowdsourcing system. Requesters will then select a proper solution (usually the first or the best one that solves the task) and reward the corresponding worker

This makes centralized systems vulnerable. User’s sensitive information (e.g. name, email address etc.,) and vulnerability reports are saved in the database of these centralized systems, which has the inherent risk of privacy disclosure and data loss. Centralized choke points are not only attack vectors for leaks and hacks, but also for outages.

Crowdsourcing companies are keen on maximizing their benefits and require requesters paying for services, which in turn increase user’s costs. Most crowdsourcing systems demand a 10–25% service fee.

All these issues add up to the already existing concerns of smart contract and multi-chains owners and developers (the audit requesters), freelance auditors’ and ethical hackers’ concerns. Some of these concerns are:

• Ensuring their assets are safe from cyber theft, data hacks or any other risk that can result in a loss of funds and compromised data
• Being able to get audits done in a cost-effective way — be it private or public security audits
• Making sure the smart contracts are audited by multiple auditors
• Hackers do not want to share sensitive personal data
• Hackers and auditors and developers need complete transparency

WEFUZZ: Fully decentralized, crowdsourced audit and bug bounty platform

WEFUZZ is a fully decentralized, crowdsourced audit and bug bounty platform aiming to be the Hacker DAO. WEFUZZ aims to provide reliability, fairness, security and low service fees by design.

The decentralized platform has many advantages such as higher user security, service availability, and lower costs. Smart contracts running on a chosen blockchain are used to perform the whole process of crowdsourcing tasks which contains posting audit and bounty campaigns, submitting audit and bug reports, bounty assignment, etc.

WEFUZZ solution offers numerous added benefits to users:

• Data Security: Reports are encrypted with auditors’ and target developers’ public key, so that the bug reports only gets read by who it is intended for. Files are encrypted and stored on the decentralized network storage. No more data breaches, hacks, password leaks or any other risk affecting existing cloud based audit and bug bounty platforms.
• Cost Effectiveness: Allowing smart contract developers, multi-chain developers, and companies to get audits performed in a cost-effective way directly by the auditors and hacker crowd on the WEFUZZ platform. This helps the developers and companies avoid huge fees and congestion issues affecting the traditional bug bounty platforms.
• Flexible anonymity: Auditors and hackers can choose to remain anonymous while submitting reports, protecting their privacy, and still getting paid.
• Communication Security: No centralized data storage, complete anonymity, no data transfers, no moderators and complete end-to-end encryption. All the data resides encrypted on the Solana blockchain and all the files reside on the IPFS blockchain.

Persona

Audit Requestors: Developers, companies or any individual can request audits or start a private/public bug bounty campaign.

Auditors: Auditors can be anyone from ethical hackers to audit firms who can perform the requested audits or participate in bug bounty campaigns.

Judges: Judges are community members who are either elected by the community or have been raised to the Judge category through reputation.

Roadmap and progress

Currently, we are working on the conceptualization, technical architecture, and system design of WEFUZZ, besides building our MVP on Solana and Polygon blockchains, and testing the optimal chain for our project.

Please join our Discord and follow us on our Twitter and Medium to keep track of the progress. We are going to release the code and other tools we build as part of the research and development in this Github account.

Coinbase is officially seeking applications for our 2022 developer grants focused on blockchain developers who contribute directly to a blockchain codebase, or researchers producing white papers. Learn more about the call for applications here.

WEFUZZ, a fully decentralized, crowdsourced security audit and bug bounty solution was originally published in The Coinbase Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By Adam Zadikoff, Senior Product Manager

Since launching the Coinbase Wallet browser extension as a standalone self-custody option in November, we’ve seen incredible adoption. Wallet extension makes it even easier to explore web3 by bringing the world of decentralized apps (dapps) to more devices. Today, we’re adding support for Ledger hardware wallets to Coinbase Wallet extension, providing an additional layer of security and greater peace of mind for our users.

Ledger is an industry leader in hardware wallets, with more than 4 million people putting their trust in Ledger to keep their crypto safe. To celebrate today’s launch, we have partnered with Ledger to release the Nano X Coinbase Edition, which is available for a limited time in Ledger’s online store.

Building the most user-friendly self-custody experience in crypto means giving our users more ways to keep their crypto secure while they access web3 and the world of crypto. And today’s launch is just the beginning — we will continue to build out support for more hardware wallets across all of our users’ devices.

Keeping your assets safe and secure

Coinbase Wallet is your passport to collecting NFTs, participating in DeFi, joining a DAO, and so much more. As you start to live more of your life on the blockchain, it’s more important than ever to keep your assets safe.

Fortunately, there are many steps you can take to keep you and your assets safe as you explore web3. It all starts with your recovery phrase, backing it up in a secure location, and making sure to never share it with anyone. And as a reminder, Coinbase will never ask you for your recovery phrase.

Coinbase Wallet offers additional layers of security for our users. For users of Wallet browser extension, we recommend adding a password to keep your assets safe. And in the Coinbase Wallet mobile app, you can use biometrics or a PIN to secure your Wallet.

Today, we are adding support for Ledger hardware wallets in the Coinbase Wallet browser extension, introducing an additional security option for our users. Hardware wallets are physical devices that store the private keys to your crypto wallet offline. Because every transaction on the blockchain requires both a user’s public and private keys, a hardware wallet ensures that only the user who holds the physical device can complete a transaction.

Using a hardware wallet is a lot like using two factor authentication to secure a website login, but instead of a six digit code that is sent as an SMS or generated in an authenticator app, your hardware wallet is used to physically confirm transactions with the press of a button.

Whether you are a first-time hardware wallet user or already have a Ledger it is easy to use Coinbase Wallet to connect to the ever-growing world of NFTs, dapps, and DeFi. All you need to do is download the Coinbase Wallet browser extension, connect your Ledger to your computer, and follow the on-screen instructions.

Protect, store, do more.

While today’s launch brings support for Ledger devices to the Wallet extension, we have ambitious plans to support more types of hardware wallets not only in Coinbase Wallet extension, but with our mobile apps as well. We will soon also add support for users with multiple active wallet addresses on a single Ledger device to select which address they want to use with Coinbase Wallet.

We want to empower everyone to use dapps and access web3, and that requires building the easiest-to-use and most accessible self-custody wallet in the ecosystem. Today’s release solves another set of important user needs, including the ability to use a hardware wallet for enhanced security.

You can experience the latest enhancements for yourself by downloading Coinbase Wallet for free from the App Store on iOS, Google Play on Android, or the Chrome web store. Make sure to follow us on Twitter @CoinbaseWallet for the latest Wallet-related news.

Coinbase Wallet is a self-custody wallet providing software services subject to Coinbase Wallet Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Coinbase Wallet is distinct from Coinbase.com, and private keys for Coinbase Wallet are stored directly by the user and not by Coinbase.com. Fees may apply. You do not need a Coinbase.com account to use Coinbase Wallet.

Ledger and the Ledger logo are registered trademarks of Ledger SAS. Purchase of the Ledger Nano X Coinbase Edition can be made on Ledger’s website and subject to Ledger Sales Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy. Subject to availability.

Explore web3 confidently with Coinbase Wallet and Ledger was originally published in The Coinbase Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

At Coinbase, our number one priority is ensuring that we uphold our security commitments to our customers. On February 11, 2022, we received a report from a third-party researcher indicating that they had uncovered a flaw in Coinbase’s trading interface. We promptly mobilized our security incident response team to identify and patch the bug, and resolved the underlying system issue without any impact to customer funds.

This blog post provides a deeper look into the timeline of events surrounding the bug report, as well as an explanation of the bug itself and the steps we took to resolve it and ensure it cannot happen again.

Timeline

(note, all events occurred on February 11, 2022, and all times are in PST)

• 10:16 AM: A member of the crypto community tweets that they have uncovered a serious flaw in the Coinbase trading interface, and requests contacts in the Coinbase Security team.
• 11:00 AM: Based on limited initial information provided by intermediaries, Coinbase Security declares an incident and mobilizes engineering resources to begin testing all trading interfaces to determine the validity of the alleged bug.
• 11:21 AM: The crypto researcher files a vulnerability report via HackerOne, Coinbase’s bug bounty platform, indicating that the flaw resides in a specific API for Retail Advanced Trading. Coinbase engineers also complete a review of all other user interfaces and Coinbase Exchange APIs and determine that they are not impacted.
• 11:42 AM: Coinbase engineers are able to reproduce the bug, and the Retail Advanced Trading platform is placed into cancel-only mode, disabling new trades.
• 4:01 PM: A patch is validated and released, resolving the incident.

Root Cause

The underlying cause of the bug was a missing logic validation check in a Retail Brokerage API endpoint, which allowed a user to submit trades to a specific order book using a mismatched source account. This API is only utilized by our Retail Advanced Trading platform, which is currently in limited beta release.

To give an example:

• A user has an account with 100 SHIB, and a second account with 0 BTC.
• The user submits a market order to the BTC-USD order book to sell 100 BTC, but manually edits their API request to specify their SHIB account as the source of funds.
• Here, the validation service would check to determine whether the source account had a sufficient balance to complete the trade, but not whether the source account matched the proposed asset for submitting the trade.
• As a result, a market order to sell 100 BTC on the BTC-USD order book would be entered on the Coinbase Exchange.

There were mitigating factors that would have limited the impact of this flaw had it been exploited at scale. For example, Coinbase Exchange has automatic price protection circuit breakers, and our trade surveillance team continuously monitors our markets for health and anomalous trading activity.

Conclusion

Thanks to the researcher who responsibly disclosed this issue, Coinbase was able to fix this bug in a matter of hours, and conclusively determine that it has never been maliciously exploited. We have also implemented additional checks to ensure that it cannot happen again.

Coinbase strongly supports independent security research, and when those researchers uncover serious issues, we want to ensure that they are rewarded accordingly. As a result, we are paying our largest-ever bug bounty for this finding: $250,000.

We welcome future submissions from this researcher and others via our HackerOne program: https://hackerone.com/coinbase.

Retrospective: Recent Coinbase Bug Bounty Award was originally published in The Coinbase Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Coinbase is proud to announce the launch of the Travel Rule Universal Solution Technology (TRUST), an industry-driven solution designed to comply with a requirement known as the Travel Rule while protecting the security and privacy of our customers. TRUST is a platform that allows cryptocurrency exchanges to securely send information legally required by the Travel Rule. The solution is named TRUST because that’s what we seek to instill in our customers when they use our products and services.

The current U.S. TRUST membership includes the following: Anchorage, Avanti, Bitgo, bitFlyer, Bittrex, BlockFi, Circle, Coinbase, Fidelity Digital Assetsˢᵐ, Gemini, Kraken, Paxos, Robinhood, Standard Custody & Trust, Symbridge, TradeStation, Zero Hash, and Zodia Custody. And we are soon expanding to other global jurisdictions.

Why is TRUST necessary?

The Travel Rule requires financial institutions to share certain basic information about their customers when sending funds over a certain amount to another financial institution. Custodial cryptocurrency exchanges (like other financial institutions) have to satisfy this rule, which was written before crypto even existed. To do this, a leading group of crypto exchanges came together to create a solution in the crypto space, while continuing to protect the security and privacy of our customers’ personal information. This unprecedented effort led to a jointly designed solution, TRUST, which we hope will soon become the industry standard for complying with these requirements.

What was the goal in designing the TRUST solution, and how was it achieved?

The core goal in designing TRUST was to achieve top-tier compliance with the Travel Rule, while fully honoring customers’ expectations over how their information is handled. To do this, important safeguards were incorporated as part of the TRUST solution:

1. No central store of personal data: We never centrally store sensitive customer information where it could be targeted by an attacker or misused by a third party. The required information is only directly sent from one TRUST member to another, through end-to-end encrypted channels, and the receiver is required to safeguard it.
2. Proof of address ownership: TRUST includes a mechanism for the receiving exchange to prove that it’s the owner of the receiving crypto address before customer information is sent — to ensure the right information is sent to the right exchange.
3. Core security & privacy standards: We require all TRUST members to meet core anti-money laundering, security, and privacy requirements before joining the solution. And we are partnering with Exiger, a global market leader in technology-enabled compliance and risk management solutions, to help us meet that bar, and to provide ongoing compliance support.

Now that TRUST has launched, what are the next steps?

The next step is adding new members, so that TRUST can provide comprehensive compliance across the crypto industry. The Travel Rule’s reach is expanding internationally, and so must the TRUST solution. TRUST is focused on expanding to many other jurisdictions this year.

The launch of TRUST resoundingly demonstrates that top-tier compliance can go hand-in-hand with a core industry value — robust protection of customer privacy and security.

To learn more about joining TRUST, click here.

Introducing the Travel Rule Universal Solution Technology (“TRUST”) was originally published in The Coinbase Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

There’s now a cheaper, easier way for your friends and family in Mexico to cash out the crypto you send them

By Shilpa Dhar, VP of Product, and Moheeth Alvi, Lead Product Manager, Payments

• Introducing an instant, convenient way for your friends and family in Mexico to cash out the crypto you send them.
• Initially, recipients in Mexico will be able to cash out crypto in local currency at over 37,000 locations across the country, or save the crypto they’ve received in their Coinbase account.

In 2020, immigrants and expats from around the world sent approximately $700 billion from the US to their family and friends back in their home countries, according to the World Bank. But many challenges exist with today’s traditional cross border payment offerings: sender fees can reach up to 6–7%, and recipients can only receive funds as cash in their local currency so they don’t have an option to save, grow, or protect their funds from losing purchasing power due to currency depreciation.

Coinbase has long presented a way to instantly send crypto (including stablecoins such as USDC) to family and friends anywhere in the world for free, and to allow recipients to invest in any of the 100+ cryptocurrencies that we support. Today, we’re introducing the ability for recipients in Mexico to cash out their crypto holdings in their local currency. The lower price of sending and cashing out crypto and flexibility in how to store funds will allow recipients to keep even more of their money.

Instantly Send Funds And Cash Out

Here’s how it works: customers today can already instantly send crypto to recipients in Mexico directly from their Coinbase app. Once sent, the recipient will receive a notification and can immediately view the crypto balance in their Coinbase account. From there, the recipient can choose to cash out or save the funds in their Coinbase account. If they choose to cash out any part of their balance, they can generate a redemption code from their Coinbase app that can be used to receive cash at 37,000 physical retail outlets and convenience stores located across Mexico. If they choose to keep their funds on Coinbase, they can simply hold the crypto asset they received or convert and invest their balance in any of the 100+ cryptocurrencies that Coinbase supports. That includes USDC, a stablecoin pegged to the US Dollar, which will help the recipient hedge against any devaluation of their local currency.

Free through March 31st

Coinbase customers in Mexico will be able to cash out their crypto using this new service free of charge through March 31, 2022. After that date, customers will be charged a nominal fee that’s still 25–50% cheaper than traditional cross border payment solutions.

We recognize this is a global issue. And while we’re starting in Mexico, over time we’ll consider other regions where customers face similar challenges.

Coinbase’s mission is to increase economic freedom around the world, and this new product is core to enabling that mission. We want to make it fast and easy for users to send crypto to anyone in the world, and allow recipients to participate in the cryptoeconomy. We’re just getting started.

There’s now a cheaper, easier way for your friends and family in Mexico to cash out the crypto you… was originally published in The Coinbase Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By Nana Murugesan, VP, International and Business Development

Coinbase will adopt a go broad and go deep approach to scale globally in order to further its mission of bringing more economic freedom to each and every individual and business around the world. Leadership roles are now open across the globe to build our international presence.

• Go Broad: launch foundational products that are a gateway to Web3 and crypto in every country*
• Go Deep: launch localized infrastructure and public facing products with a full suite of services

I joined Coinbase around a month ago to lead business development and international operations teams to further our mission, strategy, and culture around the world. In this blog, I wanted to share our international strategy, how we are thinking about building our international operations, and the exciting leadership roles we just opened up around the world for those interested to join us!

Crypto is global

By its very nature, crypto is global and decentralized, and as stated in our blog yesterday, we have an ambitious mission to increase economic freedom in the world that will rely on our ability to bring our products to customers globally. Crypto can have a seismic impact in driving toward a more equitable global economy. This is for a number of reasons, including, but not limited to, the fact that in new high growth markets, the barriers to entry into the traditional financial system may be beyond the reach of many citizens. For instance, traditional financial systems may require official identification or a credit history to access financial services and the security it provides. In larger, more diversified economies, we take these things for granted, but in many parts of the world, they’re unavailable to a majority of the population.

Advancing economic freedom

There are billions of people around the world who are underbanked or unbanked. According to the World Bank’s Global Financial Inclusion database, 1.7 billion adults are unbanked, and while the number of underbanked is harder to identify, it’s an issue that impacts almost every country. Yet two-thirds of those identified as unbanked own a mobile phone that could help them access financial services. These numbers are even worse for women, who are roughly 10 percent less likely than men to have access to financial services. Where women are not financially empowered, the trend lines are also more profoundly negative, correlated to a less established civil society and the seeds of undemocratic norms. These are precisely the types of challenges that crypto is uniquely equipped to solve.

Economic freedom is unevenly distributed around the world. Crypto enables economic freedom. At Coinbase, we believe everyone deserves access to financial services that can empower them to create a better life for themselves and their families, regardless of their location, gender or socioeconomic status.

Taking Coinbase global

Going global is complicated and this is compounded by rapidly evolving regulatory international frameworks for crypto. Our approach globally will be consistent with our approach in the United States: we will work with governments and regulators in different markets, and will always aim to be the most trusted and compliant crypto company in any market. As our co-founder & CEO Brian Armstrong has said, “clear rules of the road allow for technological innovation and investment and give the public and policy makers confidence that these markets are fair.” That is why, in Brian’s words, “we see [regulation] as a business enabler.” We will take that perspective in our global expansion.

A key first step of our strategy is to hire experienced regional and country leaders across the globe. We are now kicking off an extensive global expansion strategy, with hiring and investment plans to enter these markets which will ultimately allow Coinbase to serve customers more locally:

• Americas — Latin America, Canada
• EMEA — Europe, Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa
• APAC — South Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania, North and East Asia

[Link to newly opened Regional Managing Directors, Country Directors, and other Global & Regional Leadership roles. And, keep an eye out for more roles opening in the coming months]

With these leaders in place, we will develop and execute on in-market plans to (1) launch our products, (2) establish our presence with top local talent, (3) grow our customer base, (4) build our business, and (5) collaborate closely with our external constituents [including regulators, financial institutions and partners]. ​​In parallel, we will explore new market entry through acquisitions.

To accelerate the growth of the cryptoeconomy globally, Coinbase Ventures will double down on regional investments, adding to our portfolio of platforms such as CoinSwitch Kuber and CoinDCX in India, Bitso in Latin America, and Rain in the Middle East.

We understand that a one-size-fits-all approach won’t work as each market is unique, with its own set of opportunities, challenges, political dynamics, and cultural norms. To address this, we plan to take a go broad and go deep approach.

Go Broad: launch foundational products that are a gateway to Web3 and crypto in every country*

Coinbase’s mission is to increase economic freedom in the world, and we take this commitment seriously. The first tenet of our global strategy is to get crypto into the hands of any person who wants it, regardless of their financial status. This means we may enter international markets at scale with our decentralized and non-custodial products such as Coinbase Wallet. This allows us to offer local communities a light-weight, user-controlled, simple and secure interaction with the crypto economy and to enable fun experiences such as NFT drops from local creators. As regulatory frameworks and markets develop, we will look to go deep, as elaborated below.

Go Deep: launch localized infrastructure and public facing products with a full suite of services

In those countries that have clearly defined crypto regulation and there is a clear path for us to offer services in a way that is fully compliant with local laws and with a reasonable content moderation philosophy, we will plan to provide access to a full suite tailored to the local market. For our retail customers, this includes our custodial, full-fiat trading products, such as our main Coinbase App, and products that host user generated content (or include social features) such as our upcoming Coinbase NFT marketplace. For our institutional customers, we will plan to offer a full suite of advanced prime brokerage services, including custody and private client support.

I am excited to embark on this journey, and I look forward to providing updates along the way. At Coinbase we’re building an open financial system for the world and we’re always looking for top talent ready to do the best work of their careers to help us get there. If you think this could be you, we’re hiring!

*Subject to local regulation.

Lighting Up The Map: How Coinbase Plans To Scale Globally was originally published in The Coinbase Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By L.J. Brock, Chief People Officer

At Coinbase we have an ambitious mission to increase economic freedom in the world. If we’re going to execute against the opportunity in front of us, we’re going to need more help to scale our existing products, and build new ones. In 2022, we plan to add up to 2,000 employees across our Product, Engineering, and Design teams.

We see enormous product opportunities ahead for the future of Web3. We believe our industry is in its infancy and that building onramps for individuals to participate is critical to driving the next generation use case of crypto. We’re also expanding to include products that host user generated content like NFTs, and we’re excited about our ambitious plans for the future of Coinbase Wallet, enhancing security, ease of use, and accessibility.

We are unwavering in our focus to build for the long-term, through every crypto cycle. It’s been one of the greatest drivers of our success to date. Through the highs, we get to focus on scaling and many new people get introduced to crypto. During the lows, we get to focus on product innovation. Whether the market is up or down, we see a clear opportunity, making Coinbase one of the most exciting places to work right now.

Who we’re looking for

There are a few things we look for across all hires we make at Coinbase, regardless of role or team. First, we look for signals that a candidate will thrive in a culture like ours, where we prioritize clear communication, efficient execution, and continuous learning, among other qualities. We look for people that choose to take a mission-focused approach to their work. And we seek people with the desire and capacity to #LiveCrypto, actively building and sharing their expertise in crypto with those around them.

In return, we offer a once-in-a-career opportunity, with competitive, transparent compensation; unique benefits like multiple company-wide recharge weeks; and a remote-first environment where you’ll work on a championship team with some of the most talented people in our industry.

Crypto is at a critical juncture — public adoption is at an all-time high, crypto companies are more visible than ever before, and the explosion of Web3 applications is uncovering new possibilities every day. So if you’re excited by this opportunity and want to join us on our mission to increase economic freedom in the world, check out the Coinbase Careers Page. We’re hiring.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This communication contains “forward-looking statements” including, among other things, statements relating to our anticipated hiring in 2022. Statements containing words such as “could,” “believe,” “expect,” “intend,” “will,” “anticipate,” “plan,” or similar expressions constitute forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, including, but not limited to, risks and uncertainties related to our ability to successfully execute our business and growth strategy and maintain future profitability, market acceptance of our products and services, our ability to further penetrate our existing customer base and expand our customer base, our ability to develop new products and services, our ability to expand internationally, the effects of increased competition in our markets, and market conditions across the cryptoeconomy. The foregoing list of risks and uncertainties is illustrative, but is not exhaustive. Further information on risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from forecasted results are, or will be included in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission including our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarterly period ended September 30, 2021. Except as may be required by law, we undertake no obligation, and do not intend, to update these forward-looking statements after the date of this communication.

Coinbase plans to add 2,000 employees across Product, Engineering and Design in 2022 was originally published in The Coinbase Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Everyone Wins at Super Bowl LVI — WAGMI!

Coinbase’s first Super Bowl spot invites everyone to experience the cryptoeconomy first hand. CMO Kate Rouch shares why she’s excited about the company’s goal of introducing a billion people to the cryptoeconomy and the power of community.

COINBASE: This year’s Super Bowl is being dubbed the “Crypto Bowl” given the number of ads from crypto companies. What does this mean for the crypto industry?

KATE: There have been a lot of comparisons to the dot.com era and speculation that many of the crypto companies advertising in this year’s Super Bowl will inevitably fail. We don’t think about it that way and judging from the early response we’ve seen, Super Bowl viewers don’t either. The ethos of crypto is about new models of ownership, creativity and community — building each other up, not tearing each other down.

The number of crypto ads at the Super Bowl is yet another signal that crypto is bursting into the mainstream, and at the center of the cultural zeitgeist. What a proud day for crypto!

COINBASE: There were reports that the spot was so popular that some users experienced delays. What happened?

KATE: Our engineering teams load-tested our site to handle millions of simultaneous hits. The volume we experienced was astounding in comparison to our projections. We saw over 20M+ hits on our landing page in one minute — volume that was historic and unprecedented. We also saw engagement that was 6 times higher than our previous benchmarks. Understandably, this volume led to us temporarily throttling our systems. Hats off to our engineering team for getting the site back online so swiftly, and allowing us to welcome more people to the cryptoeconomy.

COINBASE: What do you think about all of the brands making their own version of your ad? Your ad has become a meme!

KATE: We liked them all. I’m amazed to see the creativity from brands like Avocados From Mexico, FTX, Intuit, Irish Spring and Mr. Peanut who quickly jumped on the chance to create their own version of the ad. Crypto has a loyal community who communicate in memes, so it was important to me personally to see that the community had fun with this moment.

COINBASE: Why is the Coinbase campaign titled “WAGMI”?

KATE: Coinbase — which is the largest US-based crypto exchange — has long focused on helping everyone — from total beginners to advanced traders — access cryptocurrency with an easy to use, safe and secure platform. We are on a journey to create a fairer open financial system for the world. That journey starts with every person taking a very first step — trying crypto for themselves.

Our ad helps the millions of Americans who are curious about crypto get started — completely on us! It is not about an outdated winner takes all model, but instead embraces the core ethos that “we’re all going to make it” and can all benefit from the cryptoeconomy

COINBASE: How does your campaign work?

KATE: It’s simple. Every single new user (whether they were watching the Super Bowl or not) who joins Coinbase by Feb 15 will get $15 in Bitcoin in their Coinbase account. They can also join existing users for a chance to win three $1M grand prizes.

We are committed to investing tens of millions of dollars in this program to help people learn about crypto. We’re not limiting it to a handful of winners, or even to Super Bowl Sunday. People will have two full days to sign up and get $15 in bitcoin.

And this is just the beginning. We’re planning over $100M of similar incentives to help people access and participate in the crypto community throughout the year.

COINBASE: What was the inspiration behind the QR Code ad?

KATE: We heard a lot of messages from advertisers during the Super Bowl today, and we wanted to try something different.

Our core inspiration for the ad was the curiosity and intimidation we know many people have about crypto. We wanted to pique their interest by doing something different, something that’s never been done in the history of Super Bowl advertising — a playful, low production nod to a popular Internet meme that invites action and discussion both in the living room, and on social media. We are a remote first company. Our CEO and his co-founder met on Reddit. Traditional highly produced Super Bowl advertising just didn’t feel inspiring to us. We wanted to show up in a more authentic way to our brand. We hope people found it in turn surprising, confounding and delightful.

Most of all, we hope it inspired them to take their first step into crypto.

COINBASE: How does Coinbase think about community?

KATE: At Coinbase we’ve watched our 73+ millions users empower one another to create a better life for themselves and their families by buying and trading crypto. Coinbase is the trusted bridge to the cryptoeconomy today, and we are committed to become the place people also go to actually participate in the newest use cases for crypto. NFTs, DeFi, DAOs and many of the newest spaces in crypto are decentralized and community driven. Coinbase is embracing this decentralization and excited to help onboard millions of new people to these communities.

WAGMI!

Everyone Wins at Super Bowl LVI — WAGMI! was originally published in The Coinbase Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.