Last week our theme was “Basis shuts down. Will regulation kill crypto?”
Our theme for this week is “Basis shuts down. Will regulation kill crypto?“
In a recent interview on CNBC, when Asiff Hirji, President and COO of Coinbase, was asked about Bitcoin’s price surge during the holiday season, he said that “it’s not surprising that Bitcoin has bounced back.” He also said, that “the company is a long way from an IPO and is currently focused only on building a great business.”
While we’ve all heard the rumors of Coinbase’s upcoming IPO, its evident that the company won’t IPO until it sees, from it’s proprietary data, that bear market is over.
In 2017, Coinbase crossed $1 billion mark, when Bitcoin hit $20,000. In October 2018, it was valued around $8 billion. What’s even more impressive is that the company expects to meet its target $1.3 billion in revenue.
Company document obtained by Bloomberg
For now, Coinbase has been on a strategic march, launching new services, expanding into new horizons and showing no signs of stopping. Coinbase’s CEO thinks that the total number of people in crypto will reach one billion within the next five years.
Coinbase is certainly preparing for it.
Today, Coinbase is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of users, with 25 million registered users and $7 million worth of cryptocurrencies traded on the platform every single day.
According to the November 2018 research report from the Blockchain Transparency Institute, Coinbase led the pack with 422,000 daily active users, with Binance trailing in second place with 313,000 daily active users. OKEx and Huobi barely made it over 100,000 daily active users, with 105,000 and 101,000 respectively.
A couple of weeks ago, Coinbase announced that it will potentially support 30 new crypto assets in the near future, stating on their blog: “We are continuing to explore the addition of new assets, and will be working with local banks and regulators to add them in as many jurisdictions as possible.”
Recently Coinbase launched its OTC trading desk for institutional customers and added free PayPal withdrawal for its users. Coinbase also announced the expansion of its trading platform to new markets in a move to aggressively push the market forward in the coming year. It has expanded to Lithuania, Iceland, Andorra, Gibraltar, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Earlier this year, Coinbase partnered with Barclays Bank, the first agreement between a leading U.K bank and a cryptocurrency exchange. Coinbase acquired Paradex, a non-custodial trading site built on the 0x decentralized protocol.
Coinbase is the king of the digital currency jungle. Coinbase was the first U.S. cryptocurrency startup, to become a “unicorn” and to generate $1 billion in annual revenue. With 25 million customers, its comparable with brokerages like Charles Schwab. The press is buzzing about its potential IPO. For now, the cryptocurrency market is much lower from where it was in 2017. Lots of investors got burned, making them more cautious. When Coinbase decides to IPO and creates huge returns for VC investors, it will give investors a chance to interact with the digital currency market, through a public company.
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Ilias Louis Hatzis is the Founder & CEO at Mercato Blockchain Corporation AG. He writes the Blockchain Weekly Front Page each Monday.