Surojit Chatterjee, chief product officer at Coinbase, comes to talk about what products Coinbase is building, how it can thrive in such a competitive landscape, how to onboard billions of users into crypto, and much more.
Show highlights:
- how Surojit got into crypto and ended up at Coinbase
- what sets Coinbase apart from the competition
- how to bring billions of customers to crypto
- Surojit’s mental model of a bridge between the fiat world and the crypto world
- how Coinbase is integrating its main app with Web3
- whether crypto can become a utility rather than an investment asset
- how Coinbase is building a product in such a way that it attracts even “crypto-native” people
- what happened with Coinbase NFT Marketplace’s failure and whether the company will keep investing in NFTs
- whether Coinbase has lost crypto-embedded people among its employees
- how the partnership with BlackRock indicates how far crypto has come
- the amount of money that institutions could potentially pour into crypto
- how Coinbase will prevent itself from having the largest percentage of staked ETH
- how the company is monetizing the Coinbase wallet and what would happen to revenue if the trading volume were to move from the exchange to Coinbase wallet swaps
- why Coinbase is suffering a decline in trading volume
- whether Coinbase can compete with newer exchanges like FTX and Binance and why Surojit still thinks Coinbase will win
- why it is important to keep investing and building through this crypto winter
- Surojit’s take on the frontrunning of coins about to be listed on the platform
- why the Howey test (which determines whether something is a security) is outdated
- how Coinbase understands securities, and whether the firm thinks the tokens listed on the platform are securities
- how can Coinbase compete with decentralized exchanges like Uniswap
- why Surojit is worried about regulatory clarity and stablecoins
- how hacks and security give the crypto industry a bad reputation
- what Surojit’s dreams are for the industry
Thank you to our sponsors!
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Show Links
Surojit:
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/surojit
Coinbase Q2 2022 Earnings:
- Shareholder letter: https://s27.q4cdn.com/397450999/files/doc_financials/2022/q2/v2/Q2-2022-Shareholder-Letter.pdf
- Summary: https://twitter.com/fintechintern/status/1557130836574539776?s=20&t=R-oDUTEaev-F8bPonC2q5Q
- Earnings call: https://s27.q4cdn.com/397450999/files/doc_financials/2022/q2/Coinbase-Q2%2722-Earnings-Call-Transcript.pdf
NFT Marketplace:
- Coinbase NFT launch: https://decrypt.co/99561/coinbase-nft-marketplace-150-users-first-day-public
- NFT Market data: https://dune.com/Marcov/0x-NFT-Market
- Gamestop NFT stats: https://dune.com/dataisking420/gamestopnft-stats
- Gamestop’s performance against Coinbase: https://decrypt.co/105069/gamestop-ethereum-nft-sales-dwarf-coinbase-nft
Partnerships
- BlackRock:
- https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/03/24/blackrocks-fink-says-ukraine-war-could-accelerate-crypto-adoption-report/
- https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-selected-by-blackrock-provide-aladdin-clients-access-to-crypto-trading-and-custody-via-b9e7144f313d
- https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2021/07/14/blackrock-ceo-larry-fink-seeing-very-little-demand-for-crypto-lately/
- Integration with META: https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/08/04/meta-confirms-nft-rollout-across-100-countries-amid-coinbase-integration/
Regulation and lawsuits
- Insider Trading
- Court charges: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/three-charged-first-ever-cryptocurrency-insider-trading-tipping-scheme
- Cobie’s tweet: https://twitter.com/cobie/status/1550192546889998340
- Brian Armsontrg’s tweet: https://twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/1550162989881253889
- Terra/UST lawsuit:
- IPO-related lawsuit: https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/08/09/coinbase-executives-mislead-shareholders-about-public-listing-new-lawsuit-alleges/
- Coinbase Does Not List Securities. End of Story: https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-does-not-list-securities-end-of-story-e58dc873be79#:~:text=To%20be%20explicit%2C%20the%20majority,SEC%20jumped%20directly%20to%20litigation.
- Coinbase Faces SEC Probe on Crypto Listings: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-26/coinbase-faces-sec-investigation-over-cryptocurrency-listings
- Previous Coverage of Unchained: Why a Coinbase Listing May Not Be a Good Thing for a Token:https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-a-coinbase-listing-may-not-be-a-good-thing-for-a-token/
Disclosure in the event of bankruptcy:
- https://www.cnet.com/personal-finance/crypto/coinbase-discloses-customers-could-lose-their-crypto-if-it-ever-goes-bankrupt/
- https://twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/1524233480040710144?s=20&t=RsZpP4fGxGl4JVt4iYQBRw
Competition
- Crypto market data: https://www.theblock.co/data/crypto-markets/spot
- FTX surpassing Coinbase: https://www.theblock.co/linked/149654/ftx-surpassed-coinbase-as-second-biggest-centralized-crypto-exchange-in-may
Coinbase Will Need Its Cash to Fend Off the Competition: https://www.theinformation.com/articles/coinbase-will-need-its-cash-to-fend-off-the-competition
