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Following its own mantra of compliance and prudence, The Washington Post chronicles the emergence and growing pains encountered by Coinbase over the past year (its 20m customer accounts now match that of Fidelity).
In retrospect, the service hiccup, ultimately, may have worked less as a drag on the company than as motivation to kick its expansion into overdrive. Even as Coinbase continues to flesh out its main offering — the trading platform — its investments and acquisitions all appear aimed at diversifying the company, much as Google gradually expanded its ambitions from the search engine into online video and self-driving automobiles. The past year has forced Coinbase to grow up much more quickly than many of its peers, said Barry Schuler, the former chief executive of AOL and a Coinbase board member. “The company [had] to evolve from start-up to growth stage in under 12 months,” he said. “It was the equivalent of going from toddler to college graduate with no time to be an adolescent.”
