Coinbase is clearly not a traditional Silicon Valley tech startup, and their customer base is exploding. The cryptocurrency exchange now manages more than 20 million customer accounts, nearly as many as Fidelity Investments and twice as many as Charles Schwab, according to The Washington Post. .
In much the same way as traditional asset management companies do business, Coinbase also hopes to cover more vertical investor types, such as ordinary retail investors, large hedge funds, and other institutional investors. Just last week, Coinbase announced the launch of software and asset custody tools specifically for institutional investors, including hedge funds.
However, what really makes Coinbase stand out in the cryptocurrency exchange industry is their top-down management model, which is also the key to ensuring the stable growth of Coinbases business.
Coinbase has been able to achieve such impressive growth largely due to the sound leadership principles of the companys CEO, Brian Armstrong. In a recent job posting on his blog, he was candid about the many difficulties he faced running the company, writing:
“Focusing on people is where every CEO spends the most time because great people create great products that generate huge profits (people first).”
(Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong)
At Coinbase, software is considered core to the business, and Brian Armstrong just has a very strong technical principle. In Silicon Valley, many startups hope to learn from Facebook and adopt the principle of move fast and break things. Coinbase did not take a similar approach,They believe that building stable and scalable software is the key to gaining users.
To further illustrate Coinbases operating philosophy, Brian Armstrong outlined what they have implemented over the past ninety days under the leadership of VP of Operations and Technology Tina Bhatnagar:
1. The size of the business support team has increased by 150%
2. Reduce the average first response time of 95% of business incoming volume to less than 10 hours
3. Due to the adoption of relevant measures, many problems have been solved more quickly, and the backlog of problems has been reduced by 95%
However, Coinbase also has some dissatisfaction among users:
1. Some people criticized Coinbase for being too slow to list coins;
2. It is difficult for Coinbase platform transactions to keep up with market price fluctuations, which may cause users to suffer losses due to differences in buying/selling prices;
3. When Coinbase launched its bitcoin cash trading service, it was accused of insider trading.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that the success of Coinbase largely complies with the complex regulatory requirements of the US trade and banking industry.In fact, Coinbase is on the side of government regulation on many big and big issues, such as disclosing customer information in accordance with the requirements of the US Internal Revenue Service, complying with the regulatory requirements of the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the US Commodity Futures Commission, and so on. Coinbase is also rumored to be negotiating with regulators to apply for a banking license.
This series of measures not only allowed Coinbase to consolidate its own legitimacy, but also consolidated the overall legitimacy of the blockchain industry.
