Recently evaluated at $8 Billion, Coinbase has been one of the most popular names and the largest cryptocurrency platform in North America. The exchange has been around for a long time now - and has been surging in popularity with every other day. Coinbase has been increasing their offerings and products - and continues to add more members to their team on a regular basis. The exchange is likely to be one of the biggest players of 2018-19 - and a name every crypto investor must keep track of!

In a recent letter Coinbase released as a response to the inquiry that was initiated by former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's Office, Coinbase wrote that they are dedicated to improving the customer experience as well as keeping the platform secure. Coinbase came up with a four-point proof to explain how they are dedicated towards these causes. The company states that they have been focusing on these four aspects:

• Cybersecurity

• Customer support and disclosures

• Platform reliability 

• Market integrity

The exchange states that:

“These efforts and others have resulted in a 1000% increase in our surge, transaction capacity relative to Q3 of 2017. We expect to again double this capacity in coming months, all while maintaining the highest standard of security expected by our customers.”

Coinbase also talks about their uptime, claiming that while downtime is something that even some of the biggest financial institutions in the world cannot avoid - they have recorded an uptime of 99.7% from the 1st of January to the 1st of May - and the month of April witnessed an uptime of 99.9% - an incredible statistic from Coinbase! 

However, what truly gives Coinbase the competitive edge in the cryptocurrency markets is the team that they have set together. The company states that despite a high demand for experienced technical engineers in this sector, they have managed to double the size of their team including top hires to manage infrastructure, site reliability, and payments operations for all their offerings. 

Acquisition Spree

Coinbase has been on an acquisition spree of late. The exchange has been taking over firms - primarily to acquire talent. They have also been hiring a number of new senior execs. Over the past month, Coinbase acquired the Cipher Browser, primarily to get coder Peter Kim on their team. Following that, Coinbase acquired Earn.com - following which Earn’s Balaji Srinivasan joined their team as Coinbase CTO. 

These series of acquisitions were followed by the announcement that the company has hired Aliesa Haas as their first CFO. Coinbase is on an acquisition spree - and is looking forward to getting the best names in the cryptocurrency world to join their team and manage their operations! 

Coinbase’s Legal and Regulatory Associations

Coinbase, which has been registered as a money services business since 2013, has obtained 41 licenses across 39 states and also holds the prestigious ‘Bitlicense’ offered by the state of New York. The Bitlicense is special because it is the only license in the US which is specific to virtual currency regulation and supervision - and very few crypto exchanges have it. 

Coinbase has, in the past, worked with the IRS to provide them data about certain high-net worth users so that the IRS an ensure that there is no money laundering or unaccounted income in the economy. Talking of money laundering, Coinbase’s Anti-Money Laundering compliance program has also attracted quite some attention of late as the company has been improving it constantly and 20% of their workforce is employed in the compliance department! 

Moreover, the exchange also works with a number of national and international government agencies to help educate and inform them about cryptocurrencies. This list includes names such as the FBI, DEA, IRS, US Secret Service, Europol, Interpol and the Scotland Yard among several others. 

All of these reasons put together are a strong sign that Coinbase is likely to become an even bigger and stronger player in 2018-19 and in the years to follow.