Showing posts with label coinbase. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coinbase. Show all posts

Ripple Team MOCKS The SEC Following Another Legal Win "This is not a settlement - This is a surrender by the SEC"...

SEC vs Ripple

The SEC's legal battle against Ripple involved coming after them on 2 fronts - first was their claim the company illegally profited by selling an unlicensed security (XRP Tokens) violating the Securities Act of 1933. The second targeted the company's co-founders Christian Larsen and Bradley Garlinghouse, saying they were the ones who made the decisions at the company, so they were charged with "aiding and abettting”.

Today, the SEC's targeting of Larsen and Garlinghouse has officially come to an end as District Judge Analisa Torres announced that the US securities regulator notified the court that it would not continue in the case and has issued a “voluntary dismissal”.

Ripple's lead lawyer Stuart Alderoty shared the news first saying;

"The SEC made a serious mistake going after Brad & Chris personally – and now, they’ve capitulated, dismissing all charges against our executives. This is not a settlement. This is a surrender by the SEC.

That’s 3 consecutive wins for Ripple including the July 13 decision ruling that as a matter of law XRP is NOT a security, the Oct 3 decision denying the SEC’s bid for an interlocutory appeal, and now this." on X.

Current CEO Brad Garlinghouse responded saying;

"In all seriousness, Chris and I (in a case involving no claims of fraud or misrepresentations) were targeted by the SEC in a ruthless attempt to personally ruin us and the company so many have worked hard to build for over a decade.

The SEC repeatedly kept its eye off the ball while secretly meeting with the likes of SBF – failing again and again to protect US consumers & businesses. How many millions of taxpayer $ were wasted?! Feels good to finally be vindicated."

FTX a Massive Blemish On An Already Troubled SEC...

The SEC's 'crack down' on crypto has targeted companies like Coinbase, Binance and Ripple - but where are the investors accusing these companies of wrongdoing? Who did Coinbase, Binance, or Ripple scam? You would think reddit and other crypto related forums would be full of these complaints, but when searching for terms that should lead to them, nothing is found.

While the SEC was busy targeting these companies, FTX was actively misusing users funds and behaving suspiciously fearless of being caught.  Ironically, it was one of the people under SEC investigation who brought the FTX issue to light - Binance CEO 'CZ'.

This means if CZ had not exposed Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX would still be freely spending their users funds, while their top 2 competitors faced SEC harassment - suspicious to say the least.

It makes you wonder - could SEC deliberately be hiding corruption by appearing ignorant and disorganized? 

The Strangest Contradiction...

The most alarming and confusing factor in the SEC's current actions has to be the fact that the SEC evaluated Coinbase just a couple years ago, when they approved the company to go public and sale shares of their stock.  This process involves a deep evaluation of the business, and obviously, if a business's main source of income was unlawful, they would not have been approved.

But they were approved. Coinbase even passed a phase where the SEC asked questions about any parts of the business they wanted clarification on, Coinbase answered them, and they were approved. 

Nothing has changed since Coinbase was worthy of SEC approval. There's no new leadership at the SEC since they deemed Coinbase's business legitimate just two years ago, Coinbase isn't offering anything now that they were not then. But seemingly out of nowhere, suddenly Coinbase is operating outside of the law. 

So SEC saying;  just because they approved a company seeking approval to go public and sell share shares on the stock market, it does not mean that company is legitimate - no one has been able to make sense of why the SEC is now undermining themselves in such an extreme way.

Next For Ripple...

While the charges against company founders are dropped, the case against the company itself is still considered ongoing.  While the SEC lost on their first attempt, the last statement from them was that they are appealing that decision.

But some say dropping the charges against the founders is a sign they may do the same with the charges against the company - because if the company is guilty, those running it would be as well - it would be odd to drop one and not the other.

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Author: Mark Pippen
London Newsroom
GlobalCryptoPress | Breaking Crypto News


With Competition Like BlockFi, Celsius, and Genesis ELIMINATED, Coinbase Launches Crypto LENDING For Institutional Clients...

 

Coinbase crypto lending

Coinbase, one of the world's most prominent cryptocurrency exchanges, has recently unveiled its new lending service, specifically designed for U.S institutional clients. This move signifies a strategic expansion of Coinbase's offerings, aiming to cater to the growing demand for crypto-backed financial services. Here's an in-depth look at what this new service entails and its potential implications for the crypto industry.

While specific details about the lending service's features are yet to be fully disclosed, it's expected that the service will allow institutional clients to borrow against their crypto holdings, with rates varying based on the type and amount of cryptocurrency used as collateral.

Smart Timing...

The decision to launch their lending service comes in the backdrop of the bankruptcies BlockFi and Genesis within the past year, these would have been their main competition.

Coinbase can enter the market leveraging their established reputation and infrastructure, as most people feel Coinbase would not repeat the mistakes of previous failed lenders. 

Traditional financial markets offer a myriad of lending and borrowing options, the crypto market has been playing catch-up. Coinbase has a chance to now fill this significant gap in the crypto market, which will attract institutional investors that may have been waiting for these options to become available. 

Financial Backing...

According to a filing with the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Coinbase has successfully raised $57 million for this new venture as of September 1st. While this isn't a massive amount, it's enough to allow Coinbase to prove their potential and gain confidence in their lending model, if successful, access to more capital will come easily.

Potential Challenges

Coinbase's foray into lending is not without challenges. The company is currently embroiled in a legal battle with the SEC, which has accused it of operating as an unregistered Securities Exchange broker and clearing agency. This lawsuit, initiated in June, could have implications for Coinbase's lending service, especially concerning regulatory compliance and the classification of crypto assets.

Wider Implications:

Coinbase's lending service could benefit the market as a whole, as increased liquidity and  making it easier for institutional clients to leverage their assets is bound to attract new investors, and entice current investors to increase their holdings. 

The one question worth considering - Coinbase isn't the only exchange that offers services beyond trading, many now seem to be aiming to become a "1 stop shop" offering every service that has a demand for it.

I'm honestly undecided on if this is a good or bad thing.  Under responsible leadership there are some clear advantages of a high-volume exchange offering services they can support with their existing resources. 

But it's an unpredictable world, even more so when it comes to crypto and tech - which is why I can't help but feel a bit nervous when I see a single company offering a dozen services, in an industry where companies offering a single service can suddenly find themselves struggling to stay alive. Companies with multiple revenue streams also run a risk of draining resources from healthier portions of the business in order to fill the losses of failed ventures.

However, this isn't a major concern in this specific scenario, as Coinbase has proven themselves a company evaluates long term results and avoids overly risky behavior, which stands out in the crypto world.

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Author: Jules Laurent
Euro Newsroom | Breaking Crypto News 

Coinbase Launches Non-US Company "Coinbase International" - A Warning Shot to US Regulators: Provide Clear Rules, or Companies will LEAVE...

Coinbase International

Coinbase, the well-known American cryptocurrency company, just dropped some major news: the launch of its newest exchange, "Coinbase International." 

Thanks to a recent regulatory license approval from the Bermuda Monetary Authority, this new platform will allow Coinbase to operate globally and expand its reach beyond the US market.

Currently, Coinbase is ranked as the second-largest exchange globally, trailing behind its competitor Binance, which interestingly did the reverse - starting internationally and then launching a US exchange.

However, at the time of its launch, Coinbase International will exclusively cater to institutional investors outside of the United States, meaning that retail traders will have to wait a bit longer to gain access.

With this comes a first for Coinbase - leveraged trading. Coinbase International will offer leveraged trading, but they're starting small with a maximum 5X leverage option.

A Warning Shot...

Coinbase's move into the international market may also serve as a warning to the US government, particularly the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), to provide more clarity and answers to unresolved questions regarding crypto regulations. 

If they continue to fail in their duties, they risk pushing companies like Coinbase out of the US market, which could have a significant economic impact, leading investors to seek out unregulated areas of the market.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong was asked if Coinbase would relocate entirely if regulators continued to fail to provide clarity, he said "anything is on the table".

More info soon...

Unfortunately, Coinbase has not revealed which countries will have access to the new exchange, but you can sign up on their platform to see if you're eligible.

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Author: Mark Pippen
London News Desk 
Breaking Crypto News

CoinBase Posts $1.1 Billion Second Quarter 2022 Loss - Coinbase COO Explains What This Means For the Company...

 Coinbase posted a $1.1 billion second-quarter loss and lower-than-expected revenue as the largest US cryptocurrency exchange was battered by tumbling digital-asset prices. Shares slid on the news after the close. In this video Coinbase President and COO Emilie Choi speaks to Bloomberg.

Video courtesy of Bloomberg

Coinbase Faces Lawsuit Over Failed Stablecoin... and it isn't TerraUSD!

coinbase lawsuit gyen stablecoin

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase was chastised for promoting and facilitating the trade of the GYEN stablecoin, which turned out to be a failure. GYEN is a cryptocurrency that was created on the Ethereum network to match the value of the Japanese yen.

"Donovan," a representative of "hundreds of users" of the platform in the case, filed the claim in the Federal Court of North Carolina, United States.

In addition to the exchange, the lawsuit also names GMO-Z.com as the issuing business of the GYEN token. These two entities are accused of giving investors inaccurate information about the cryptocurrency's reliability when Coinbase launched it for exchange and released a guide outlining its key features.

According to the lawsuit, investors would have purchased the GYEN tokens believing that each one was worth one yen, but their value was "inflated."

The token's value sank by more than 80% in a single day.

According to CoinMarketCap statistics, GYEN is now trading at $0.0077, while the correct price is $0.77 USD per yen at the time of writing, that is 10X lower than intended.

GMO-Z also has another stablecoin, ZUSD (ZUSD), that is pegged to the value of the US dollar but has found a way to keep its peg to the currency.

The lawsuit currently awaits review, filed in the US District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).
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Author: Justin Derbek
New York News Desk
Global Crypto Press Association / Breaking Crypto News

Shopify CEO Joins Coinbase Board Of Directors...

 

Coinbase Announcement

Coinbase posted the announcement on their blog:

"Tobi brings a wide variety of skills and expertise to the Coinbase board. First and foremost, he is a tremendous entrepreneur, building Shopify from the ground up into a global commerce leader. He also deeply believes in the power of crypto and was an early adopter of crypto through Shopify’s integration with Coinbase Commerce. Serving millions of merchants in more than 175 countries, Shopify sits at the nexus of three important areas that crypto seeks to revolutionize: Finance and payments, web applications, and the internet itself.

A builder at heart, Tobi began writing computer code in his early teens. He soon became an active member of the open source community, contributing to projects such as Ruby on Rails, Liquid and ActiveMerchant. Building on his experience developing open source projects, Tobi launched an ecommerce platform in 2004 focused on selling snowboarding equipment. This online store soon grew into what we know today as Shopify. Tobi’s experience as a founder & CEO, scaling his business from a small, niche online marketplace into what has become a critical backbone of global ecommerce will help guide Coinbase as we seek to bring crypto to more people and businesses around the world."

Which brings the obvious question to mind: will Shopify soon support cryptocurrency payments?

In 2021 they set a new annual revenue earnings record of $1.12 billion - giving Tobi the title of "Canada’s wealthiest company founder".

Read the full announcement here.

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GlobalCryptoPress.com / Silicon Valley Newsroom
Breaking Crypto News

Two Former Government Regulators Hired By Top Crypto Exchanges Have Recently Resigned...

 

Two Former Government Regulators Hired By Top Crypto Exchanges Have Recently Resigned

Last Friday Binance US lost their CEO after just 3 months. Prior to taking the role with Binance, he served as acting comptroller in the Trump administration.

Brian Brooks gave as the reason for his departure disagreements over strategic direction.

And the 2nd former regulator to leave a top crypto firm in recent days...

Brett Redfearn has resigned as Coinbase's head of capital markets after just four months in the job.

Redfearn, a former Securities and Exchange Commission official, was the SEC's director of the trading and markets division prior to joining Coinbase.

According to sources familiar with the matter, Redfearn's departure was triggered by Coinbase's shift in focus away from digital asset securities.

A spokesperson from Coinbase confirms the story and says the Redfearn left to pursue other goals, but on positive terms.

What does it mean?

Not much, in my opinion. Binance US's search for stable leadership has been an ongoing issue... which is clearly still ongoing. 

In the case of Coinbase, it seems Redfearn's expertise wasn't as necessary as initially thought.

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Author: Justin Derbek
New York News Desk
Breaking Crypto News

Shots Fired - Robinhood CEO Says Coinbase's Fees Too High, Shares Goal Of Expanding Crypto Offerings...

Robinhood has had a rough month following halting users from buying stock in Gamestop after Reddit pumped it, in a story too long to summarize.

Just know it ends with Robinhood claiming they're innocent, and were forced to stop because of regulations that apply to them having to do with the amount of stocks they hold for customers and maintaining a percentage of funds in the bank for all of them. But there's still no shortage of angry traders who left the platform and still rant about it today.

In a video (above) just posted to Robinhood's YouTube channel, CEO Vlad Tenev seems to have what he believes may be the path back to being respected by the young tech savvy professionals they've always targeted - by becoming the new, less expensive, major crypto exchange? 

Aftermath of Coinbase's CEO Telling Employees That Their Company Is About Crypto (Not Social Issues and Political Activism)...


Coinbase's CEO sent a company notice out to all the employees last week, the point being that the company was about cryptocurrency trading and will not be distracted by unrelated issues of social activism or politics. 

At least 60 employees left the company in response.

But that's a small portion of the 1000+ total employees, and based on the memo, these are the people Coinbase doesn't want anyway.  "No loss" as far as they are concerned. 

Video courtesy of CNBC

Why Are So Many Executives Leaving Coinbase? As Their President and COO Announces He's Next To Go, We Take A Closer Look...

Coinbase President and COO Asiff Hirji announced his departure from Coinbase today, with Emilie Choi, VP of Business and Data set to replace him.

"His experience and mentorship helped guide Coinbase through an important chapter in its history. He joined at a critical time when both the company and crypto space were going through rapid growth, bringing his extensive experience to bear when it was most necessary." says CEO Brian Armstrong.

But he's just the latest in a string of high level executives moving on, and that's raised some concerns.

Other recent departures include Chief Technology Officer Balaji Srinivasan, institutional sales director Christine Sandler, and vice president and general manager Adam White.

So, is something going wrong inside of Coinbase? I spoke with one of my contacts inside of the company, who insists Coinbase is thriving - in fact, they're doing so well, other companies want their leaders for themselves.

"It's a mixed blessing, cryptocurrency is about to take off in a big way and major instutional players from Wall Street want to be in a profitable position when it does.  That means they're turning to companies like Coinbase for talent.  If you're looking to hire someone with experience in insutional cryptocurrency investing, who based in the US - we're the obvious target."  as far as how Coinbase is performing, they add "Coinbase's success is why our employees are in high demand, our team has pulled off exactly what these other companies hope to do.  We're holding over $1 billion worth of crypto in our custody service, half of US trading volume comes from us, and the company's latest funding round valued it at $8 billion."

These claims all seem to check out, leading me to believe Coinbase really is doing just fine - for now.

Where this becomes risky is possibly being unable to replace talent leaving, with talent equally or better qualified.  So far, they seem to have been able to - but keeping talent is always preferred over taking the risks that come with replacing someone.

The faster the revolving door spins, the higher that risk goes - that's how companies have found themselves in a position where multiple departments lack proper leadership at once - the turn from 'hugely successful' to 'sinking ship' can happen in the blink of an eye.

Coinbase may need to explore increasing incentives for high-level employees to stick around.

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Author: Ross Davis
E-Mail: Ross@GlobalCryptoPress.com Twitter:@RossFM
San Francisco News DeskUS Crypto Traders - Claim Your $25 BTC...


After years of hurling insults and slander at Coinbase, Ripple fans celebrate victory! A look back on how it all went down...

It's official - the 'XRP Army' has won the war - CoinBase has decided to list their favorite token! While everyone is best friends now, 48hrs ago it was a different story... seriously, about as different as a story can be.

Anyone who's in crypto, and on Twitter, has undoubtedly been subjected to seeing every Tweet posted by, or related to Coinbase or their leadership, get totally taken over by the 'XRP Community'  aka 'XRP Army' as they absolutely ripped Coinbase apart.

It became so bad, i'm somewhat shocked Coinbase added them, and now we finally know the trick to get a coin listed - verbally assault them daily on social media.

While the XRP community celebrates their official listing on Coinbase - I thought it would be fun to look back at all the good times!

If you're part of a project with a token and dream about one day being listed on Coinbase - take notes, this is how it's done...













What else is there to say? It worked!

So... good job?

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Author: Oliver Redding
Seattle News Desk

Exclusive: Coinbase rules against listing Bitcoin SV, allows withdraws only - learn why...


It took 3 months, but CoinBase is finally allowing users to withdraw any Bitcoin SV (BSV) they earned from holding Bitcoin Cash during the fork.

If you have any, you should have an e-mail from Coinbase now with instructions on how to withdraw the BSV to somewhere that does support it - Coinbase has decided that won't be them.

I spoke exclusively with one of my contacts inside of Coinbase to find out why they decided against giving BSV an exchange listing.  This is someone high enough up to have a role in the decision making process, and they agreed to give me 'the blunt truth' if I do not include their name and emphasize that this is not an official company statement on the issue.

I was told:

"Honestly if you asked this a couple months ago I may have said we 'likely will' add it to the exchange, or at least CoinBase Pro.

But as we evaluated it, it seemed like 90% of  BSV mentions in the press were part of articles covering something erratic its founder was doing or saying. Almost any article that mentions Bitcoin SV also includes something or someone that Craig is 'going to war' with and if that's not the theme, it's an article about Craig lying, like his 'I'm Satoshi' stunt.

All that aside an analyst here also believed that the historical trading data on BSV showed patterns that in his opinion looked like supporters emotionally buying, and haters organizing 'coordinated dumps'.

As our engineering teams finished up the back-end allowing people to access their BSV we had all these factors to take into consideration: It's already down to half the price of Bitcoin Cash, Craig seems willing to run it down to $0 on this bad-press tour, and the market data is erratic. The decision that followed was no surprise."

In closing adding;

"Do we need to feature 3 coins that have split our community into 3 groups arguing over which one is 'the real' Bitcoin?

I remember when Bitcoin Cash was launching I had a lunch meeting with the CEO of a massive Silicon Valley company (you know who this is, everyone does).  He asked me 'What is this Bitcoin civil war I read about yesterday?'.

After explaining and answering questions his whole attitude changed - he was in disbelief that someone could even legally pull off Roger Ver's campaign to devalue the real Bitcoin, along with his ownership of Bitcoin.com where he was selling his new coin simply as 'Bitcoin'.

It was like in the span of 10 minutes this respected person in tech went from taking cryptocurrency seriously, to seeing it as bunch of crazy kids with a lot to figure out."

So the forked coin of a forked coin didn't work out, who could have guessed? I'm not a Bitcoin minimalist by any means, and I believe it's very possible another coin will one day overtake the original Bitcoin.

That coin will not be Bitcoin Cash or Bitcoin SV - those will go down in history as nothing more than the experiments which established a rule:a coin cannot be replaced by a new one using it's name.

There's 1 situation where this does work, take a look at Ethereum and Ether Classic. Why? Because the creator of the first version was behind the new version. Without this people only see one person trying to destroy and take over someone else's creation - that will always be met with hostility.

Any new coin calling itself Bitcoin will never have this essential endorsement from the original creator, unless the real Satoshi comes back, too bad he's dead. Yelling at people that the original coin they hold isn't 'real' and the one you made is simply does not work.

Share your thoughts on all of this with, Tweet @GlobalCryptoDev

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Author: Ross Davis
E-Mail: Ross@GlobalCryptoPress.com Twitter:@RossFM
San Francisco News Desk

Coinbase wants to send you to online cryptocurrency school - and pay you to do it!

Back in April we covered the story of Coinbase purchasing Earn.com for over $100 million (link) and today they've announced an entirely new way they plan to use it.

Originally, Earn revolved around a mobile app that allows users to earn cryptocurrency as a reward when they complete a survey, join a website, read an sponsors e-mail, etc - basically advertisers can use the app and pay people for participating in a variety of ways.

Today CoinBase announced their new plan for it - people can study up on the cryptocurrencies they support, and get rewarded for it.

Coinbase explains "Coinbase Earn allows users to earn cryptocurrencies, while learning about them in a simple and engaging way. The idea is for users to understand more about an asset’s utility and its underlying technology, while getting a bit of the asset to try out."

Currently, there is only 1 of these 'lessons' about cryptocurrency on the site now, this one is about 0x and comes in the form of three 2 minute videos.

There's a lot of coins today and more coming, this really could be a great way to motivate people to look into something they otherwise wouldn't have taken the time to.

You can take a look at the 0x CoinBase Earn lessons here.

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Author: Justin Derbek
New York News Desk

Soon you may be able to buy a piece of CoinBase - as company reportedly looks to go public and become tradable on the stock market...

The idea isn't far fetched, CoinBase's own COO Asiff Hirji said "The most obvious path for Coinbase is for us to go public at some point" - but that was late last year, the buzz died down until now.

Host of CNBC South Africa show "Crypto Trader" Ran NeuNer says he has uncovered details he will soon release that CoinBase is about to make it happen.  Saying in a tweet "CNBC Cryptotrader exposes details of the Coinbase IPO raise tomorrow on a Cryptotrader exclusive."

Another sign he may be right, is CoinBase's recent successful move to become a "Qualified Custodian" - in short, it gives them legal authority similar to a bank when it comes to holding money that belongs to it's customers.

When reaching out to one of my contacts inside CoinBase, they had no additional information, saying if it is happening, their department hasn't received any notice.

For now, the official status of CoinBase going public can only be considered "unverified" but very possible - we'll be watching for further developments.

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Author: Oliver Redding
Seattle News Desk

CoinBase teams up with Circle, adding new stable coin to their platform - as the industry takes another big step away from Tether...

Today Coinbase and Circle announced an alliance under what they're calling the "CENTRE Consortium".  In this arrangement, Coinbase has added the first stable coin to their platform - Circle's "USD Coin" which officially launched in May of this year.

"Starting today, Coinbase customers in supported jurisdictions can buy, sell, send and receive the USD Coin stablecoin (USDC) at Coinbase.com and in the Coinbase iOS and Android apps. US customers outside New York state can buy and sell, and customers around the world can send and receive. More geographies will be available in the future." says CoinBase in a blog post.

Stable coins are intended to always be worth $1 US Dollar, and each one issued backed by $1 sitting in a bank.

The current top stable coin, Tether (USDT) is accused of not having that money in the bank to back up the USDT sitting on cryptocurrency exchanges, and last week these fears lead to a massive dumping of the token that had it trading below the $1 "stable" price.

Circle and Coinbase are encouraging other exchanges to join them in offering USD Coin, between this announcement, and the story I broke last week of Binance looking to add more stable coins to their platform - I believe we're looking at exchanges implementing a smooth transition away from Tether, just in case the worst of the rumors are true.

Now if the criticisms of Tether end up to be true, by the time we find out - it won't matter.  The more cryptocurrency is backed by stable coins that could pass an audit, the less impact bad news from Tether could have. At least I believe that's the plan we're seeing in motion now.

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Author: Adam Lee 
Asia News Desk