Coinbase

Coinbase, Inc.
Founded June 20, 2012 (2012-06-20)
Headquarters San Francisco, California, U.S.
Area served 32 countries [1]
Founder(s) Brian Armstrong
Fred Ehrsam
Products Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, exchange of digital assets
Employees 51-200[2]
Website www.coinbase.com
Users 7,400,000 (May 2017)[3]
[4][5][6]

Coinbase is a digital asset exchange company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It operates exchanges of Bitcoin (), Ethereum (Ξ), Litecoin (Ł) and other digital assets with fiat currencies in 32 countries,[7] and bitcoin transactions and storage in 190 countries worldwide.[8][9][10][11]

History

Coinbase was founded in June 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam.[5][12] It enrolled in the Summer 2012 Y Combinator startup incubator program. In October 2012, the company launched the services to buy and sell bitcoin through bank transfers.[13]

In May 2013, the company received a US$5 million Series A investment led by Fred Wilson from the venture capital firm Union Square Ventures[14]. In December 2013, the company received a US$25 million investment, from the venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures and Ribbit Capital.[15]

In 2014, the company grew to one million users, acquired the blockchain explorer service Blockr and the web bookmarking company Kippt, secured insurance covering the value of bitcoin stored on their servers, and launched the vault system for secure bitcoin storage[16][17][18]. Throughout 2014, the company also formed partnerships with Overstock, Dell, Expedia, Dish Network, Time Inc., and Wikipedia to power accepting bitcoin payments[19][20][21][22][23]. The company also added bitcoin payment processing capabilities to the traditional payment companies Stripe, Braintree, and PayPal[24].

In January 2015, the company received a US$75 million investment, led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, the New York Stock Exchange, USAA, and several banks, "apparently the first time any traditional financial institutions have taken direct stakes in a bitcoin enterprise"[25]. Later in January, the company launched a U.S.-based bitcoin exchange for professional traders called Coinbase Exchange[26].

In May 2015 there was controversy around reports on Reddit that Coinbase had asked a user to describe how they were spending their bitcoin; the Daily Dot reported on the matter, and received a statement from Coindesk stating: "We don’t comment on specific cases, however, Coinbase is required to monitor activity on its platform in accordance with the Bank Secrecy Act and other regulation governing all Money Service Businesses.”; the Daily Dot noted that Coindesk is obligated to comply with the Bank Secrecy Act, which prevents money laundering, in order to operate as an exchange.[27]

Coinbase began to offer services in Canada in 2015, but in July 2016, Coinbase announced it would halt services in August after the closure of their Canadian online payments service provider Vogogo[28].

On 29 March 2016, Coinbase was listed by UK-based company Richtopia at number 2 in the list of 100 Most Influential Blockchain Organisations[29][30].

In May 2016, the company rebranded the Coinbase Exchange, changing the name to the Global Digital Asset Exchange (GDAX)[31] and offering Ether, the value token of Ethereum, for trade on its professional trading exchange service[32]. In July 2016, they extended the support to their "Coinbase" retail exchange by adding Ether as only the second digital currency offered to retail customers[33].

On 17 January 2017, Coinbase obtained the Bitlicense from the New York State Department of Financial Services, which authorizes the company continuing virtual currency business operations in New York[34].

On March 2017, Coinbase received from the New York Department of Financial Services the approval to offer trading of Ethereum and Litecoin currencies in New York[35].

Products

Coinbase has two core products: a Global Digital Asset Exchange (GDAX) for trading a variety of digital assets on its professional asset trading platform, and a user-facing retail exchange of Bitcoin, Ether, and Litecoin for fiat currency[33]. It also offers an API for developers and merchants to build applications and accept payments in both digital currencies. As of 2014, the company offered buy/sell trading functionality in 25 countries, while the wallet was available in 190 countries worldwide.[36]

The exchange can be funded through a bank transfer or wire, and trades on the exchange have a maker/taker price model in which traders pay either a 0.25% fee (taker) or nothing (maker) to execute trades[37].

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Global Coinbase". Global Coinbase. Retrieved 2017-05-05.
  2. ↑ "Coinbase". LinkedIn. Retrieved 2017-05-28.
  3. ↑ "About Coinbase". Retrieved 2017-05-28.
  4. ↑ "About Coinbase". Coinbase. Retrieved 1 Oct 2014.
  5. 1 2 "Company Overview of Coinbase, Inc.". Bloomberg News. Retrieved 1 July 2014.
  6. ↑ "Coinbase". LinkedIn. Retrieved 1 July 2014.
  7. ↑ "Global Coinbase". Retrieved 2017-05-05.
  8. ↑ "Coinbase - Your Hosted Bitcoin Wallet". Coinbase. Retrieved 30 November 2015.
  9. ↑ Fowler, Geoffrey A. (2014-02-18). "Bitcoin experiment in everyday life". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2014-02-25.
  10. ↑ Fung, Brian. "Expedia wants you to book your next hotel stay with Bitcoin". The Washington Post. Retrieved 1 July 2014.
  11. ↑ Ember, Sydney (2014-09-10). "Coinbase Extends Bitcoin Access to International Customers". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 October 2014.
  12. ↑ "Dish Network Says It Will Accept Bitcoin". The New York Times. Retrieved 1 July 2014.
  13. ↑ Ludwig, Sean (2013-02-08). "Y Combinator-backed Coinbase now selling over $1M Bitcoins per month".
  14. ↑ Sarah E. Needleman (2013-05-07). "Coinbase Nabs $5M in Biggest Funding for Bitcoin Startup". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 10 October 2014.
  15. ↑ Alex Williams (2013-12-12). "Coinbase Raises $25M Led By Andreessen Horowitz To Build Its Bitcoin Wallet And Merchant Services". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2013-12-13.
  16. ↑ Cutler, Kim-Mai (2014-05-06). "Coinbase Acquires YC-Backed Kippt To Beef Up Its Product, Design Talent".
  17. ↑ Cutler, Kim-Mai (2014-08-18). "Coinbase Acquires Blockchain Explorer Blockr.io".
  18. ↑ Knight, Shawn (2014-09-01). "Coinbase has been insuring Bitcoin deposits for nearly a year".
  19. ↑ Burns, Matt (2013-12-21). "Overstock.com partners with Coinbase and starts accepting bitcoins as payment". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2014-01-10.
  20. ↑ Kharif, Olga. "Expedia to Accept Bitcoins for Online Hotel Bookings". Bloomberg. Retrieved 28 September 2014.
  21. ↑ "Expedia.com Now Accepts Bitcoin to Give Travelers More Choice and Flexibility in Hotel Payments". Bloomberg. Jun 11, 2014. Retrieved 28 September 2014.
  22. ↑ Rizzo, Pete. "Time Inc Becomes First Major Magazine Publisher to Accept Bitcoin". Coindesk. Retrieved 16 December 2014.
  23. ↑ Wilhelm, Alex (2014-07-18). "Dell Now Accepts Bitcoin For All Online U.S. Purchases". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2014-07-24.
  24. ↑ Del Rey, Jason (2014-03-27). "Stripe Merchants Will Soon Be Able to Accept Bitcoin Payments".
  25. ↑ Vigna, Paul; Casey, Michael (2015-01-20). "Coinbase raises 75 million in funding round". Wall Street Journal.
  26. ↑ Bensinger, Greg (2015-01-25). "First U.S. Bitcoin Exchange Set to Open". Wall Street Journal.
  27. ↑ Cox, Joseph (5 May 2015). "Coinbase accused to spying on a Dark Net researcher". The Daily Dot.
  28. ↑ "Coinbase to Shutdown CAD Services to Canadian Customers - CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News". cryptocoinsnews.com. 8 July 2016. Retrieved 23 July 2016.
  29. ↑ "Top 100 Blockchain Organisations: From CoinDesk to BitPay, These Are the Most Influential Organisations in the Distributed Ledger Space". Richtopia. Retrieved 21 May 2016.
  30. ↑ "Blockchain Organisations Top 100". Blockchain Age. Retrieved 3 June 2016.
  31. ↑ "GDAX - Trusted Digital Asset Exchange". Retrieved 2017-06-07.
  32. ↑ Shin, Laura (2016-05-20). "Digital Currencies Show Potential To Be New Asset Class As Demand For Bitcoin Rival Ethereum Rises". forbes.com. Retrieved 23 July 2016.
  33. 1 2 Tepper, Fitz (2016-07-21). "Coinbase is adding support for Ethereum". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 23 July 2016.
  34. ↑ Suarez, Juan (2017-01-17). "Coinbase obtains the Bitlicense". Retrieved 10 June 2017.
  35. ↑ "DFS authorizes Coinbase, Inc. to provide additional virtual currency products and services". 2017-03-22.
  36. ↑ Reisinger, Don (2014-09-11). "Bitcoin platform Coinbase expands to 13 European countries".
  37. ↑ "Coinbase Exchange Documentation". 2015-01-26.
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