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PayPal is shuttering its San Francisco office: Report

April 27, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Business

A spokesperson reportedly hinted the closure was aimed at the company evaluating its “global office footprint."

Major United States-based payment processor PayPal will reportedly be closing its office in San Francisco, while the headquarters in nearby San Jose will remain available to employees.

According to a Wednesday report from TechCrunch, the payments firm will be closing its offices in downtown San Francisco with its Xoom arm — the division responsible for international digital money transfer services. At the time of publication, PayPal has several job listings for San Francisco as well as 17 other locations across the United States, and 32 international locations.

A PayPal spokesperson reportedly hinted the closure was aimed at the company evaluating its “global office footprint.” Another person at PayPal familiar with internal happenings at the firm said displaced San Francisco employees would also have the option of working remotely.

PayPal shuttering its San Francisco office https://t.co/XEQvXwYVYH by @bayareawriter
— TechCrunch (@TechCrunch) April 27, 2022

PayPal released its earnings report for the first quarter of 2022 on Wednesday, reporting the firm had a total payment volume of $323 billion and transaction revenues totaling roughly $6.5 billion. The latter included fees from facilitating “the purchase and sale of cryptocurrencies.”

Since announcing it would accept cryptocurrency payments in 2021, PayPal has made inroads into the digital asset space by exploring the development of a stablecoin. In addition, the payments firm established an advisory council in February aimed at supporting endeavors related to crypto, blockchain and digital currencies.

The San Francisco Bay Area is home to many major crypto and tech companies, but some firms have made an exodus in recent years, possibly due to staff willing to accept remote working conditions amid the pandemic. Major crypto exchange Coinbase announced in May 2021 that it would be closing its San Francisco headquarters in 2022 as part of its commitment to “being remote first.”

Kraken CEO Jesse Powell also said in April that the firm had shut down its global headquarters in the city by the bay following reports several of its employees had been “attacked, harassed and robbed on their way to and from the office.”

Kraken shuts down global headquarters as ‘San Francisco is not safe’

April 8, 2022 Coin Telegraph

California

In a Tweet, Kraken CEO Jesse Powell has made the decision to close the Kraken global headquarters in San Francisco.

The Golden City is losing its shine as one of the largest United States-based cryptocurrency exchanges closes its San Francisco-based headquarters.

Kraken CEO, Jesse Powell retweeted that Kraken will close its global headquarters on 548 Market Street, in the center of San Francisco. In the retweet shared by a San Francisco-based political commentator, Richie Greenberg, the decision cites that:

“We shut down Kraken’s global headquarters on Market Street in San Francisco after numerous employees were attacked, harassed and robbed on their way to and from the office.”

Cointelegraph reached out to the Kraken team for comment and will update if and when they reply.

A poor advertisement for living in California’s financial center, the tweet also states that “San Francisco is not safe,” and crime is “dramatically underreported.”

BREAKING: KRAKEN CEO Jesse Powell @jespow today issued a statement regarding rampant crime in San Francisco and the failures of DA @chesaboudin . pic.twitter.com/7gx7PldQM0
— Richie Greenberg (@richieSF2016) April 7, 2022

U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase will also close its San Francisco headquarters in 2022, however, no mention of crime or homelessness was made. Instead, Coinbase followed the lead of its competitor Binance in becoming a fully remote, global company.

The Twitter community was quick to respond to the Kraken news, sharing dark anecdotes of working in San Francisco.

I worked at Market St for few months, it is crazy, it turns into skid row after 6pm. I'm from Europe and never seen anything like it. Still have flashbacks of the things I witnessed. Just tried to look away and not get stabbed. Remember walking in the smell of skunk and pee.
— Markus (@markustallinn) April 7, 2022

The living situation is so dire that rhere are applications that track human waste around San Francisco, Snap Crap is among the most popular. The applications help San Franciscans navigate the city without puting their foot in it.

A San Francisco poop map. Source: arcgis.com

The Twitter and Reddit community comments shone a light on how soaring rental prices have made homelessness more common, while crime is “rampant.” The average rent is now roughly $3,000 a month, while the San Francisco Chronicle estimates that there are more than 18,000 homeless people in the city.

A report in 2020 revealed that San Francisco and the surrounding zone, the Bay Area, boasted the highest concentrations of crypto investments. In light of Kraken’s decision, and the social crises in San Francisco, the hold on crypto and the future of finance may falter.

Other US cities and states have made clear their intentions to attract crypto capital: Texas, for example, hosts pro-Bitcoin Senator Ted Cruz, (BTC) while Web3 and crypto payments have been lauded by the mayor of Austin.

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Coinbase Announces San Francisco HQ Shutdown by 2022

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Coinbase crypto exchange to close San Francisco headquarters in 2022

May 6, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Coinbase is taking measures to ensure that no office becomes an unofficial headquarters.

Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is going completely remote and closing is its head offices in San Francisco.

Coinbase announced Wednesday that it will shut down its former headquarters in the Golden Gate City in 2022 as part of its commitment to “being remote first.”

“We’ve committed to having no HQ, and it’s important to show our decentralized workforce that no one location is [more] important than the another,” Coinbase noted. According to the company, the upcoming closure will be an important step in ensuring that no office becomes an unofficial headquarters. “Instead, we will offer a network of smaller offices for our employees to work from if they choose to,” the firm stated.

Coinbase CEO and co-founder Brian Armstrong officially announced the firm's intention to become remote-first and decentralized in February 2021. At the time, 52% of Coinbase employees were those who joined the company in a post-office world, the firm said. Coinbase stressed that about 95% of its employees will still have the option to work at home.

“We now have employees, many who originally worked in San Francisco, all over the country and world. Since January 2020, nearly 250 employees have relocated worldwide, and more than 150 have left San Francisco, representing about 21% of our global and 29% of our San Francisco workforce during that time,” Coinbase wrote.

Coinbase’s move into being remote-first echoes a similar no-headquarters stance by competitor Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said back in 2019 that office and headquarters are “old concepts like SMS and MMS.”

San Francisco

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