Coinbase Wallet News: Citing low usage, Coinbase Wallet announced it will no longer support assets like Ripple (XRP) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) among others. The team announced December 5, 2022 as the deadline to stop support for a total of cryptocurrencies. Users will be able to access their holdings in these assets through the Coinbase Wallet recovery phrase, it said. With this, these networks will lose support to access Dapps on the networks.
Tag: Coinbase
Coinbase is in trouble after nearly 100 customers filed lawsuits against the Western Hemisphere’s largest digital currency trading platform.
Customers Are Angry at Coinbase
These customers accuse Coinbase of turning a blind eye to a scam that ended up costing them over $21 million in digital currency funds. The problem stems from the Coinbase Wallet, which last fall, when downloaded, directed users to fraudulent or fake websites that allowed scammers and hackers to take control of their accounts and transfer their digital assets to Coinbase wallets.
To date, due to the terms and conditions applied by Coinbase, none of the lawsuits in question have resulted in defendants or plaintiffs going to court. Instead, everything is handled through an arbitration process. This ensures that details remain out of the media and that lawsuits take place privately between the company and those affected. Legal disputes are heard by a neutral decision maker who then decides which party deserves a decision in their favor.
In the arbitration process, customers allege that Coinbase was well aware of what was happening with its wallet application and that executives did nothing to address it or minimize the damage. They made several attempts to alert Coinbase bosses to what was going on, but little was done to acknowledge their concerns or the money they had lost. Now these people are taking stronger means to get their money back and get justice for themselves.
To say it was a difficult year for Coinbase would be an understatement. 2022 has been affected by digital currency based issues for everyone, although Coinbase has arguably been affected more than others. What was initially supposed to be a year of massive hiring and taking headcount to new levels turned into a time when not only were all hiring plans put on hold, but the exchange subsequently announced that it would lay off around 18% of its team. to deal with the cryptocurrency windfall the space was experiencing.
The company has had a tough year.
Furthermore, the company has seen its shares crash and burn in recent weeks due to how tied it is to bitcoin, the world’s largest and most popular cryptocurrency by market capitalization. The asset has lost over 70% of its value in the past 12 months, and with bitcoin losing so much in such a short period, the digital exchange is seeing similar results.
When the company first went public in April 2021, shares were priced above $300, even though those same shares have since dropped into the $50 range. Coinbase is also the subject of a new SEC investigation.
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has been granted permission to file its amicus brief to join Ripple Labs in supporting its ongoing lawsuit with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
On Monday, US District Judge Analisa Torres granted motions for the 12 Ripple supporters to submit their amicus briefs. Among the list of growing supporters are Coinbase and the Blockchain Association. Backers have until November 18 to submit their abstracts, but Coinbase has already confirmed their submission. Earlier this month, she asked the court to consider her request for an amicus brief. An amicus brief is known as a “friend of the court” and is a legal brief that contains advice or information related to a court case from an organization that is not directly involved in the case.
The case between Ripple Labs and the SEC took a big step forward in October, when it was decided in Ripple’s favor and Judge Torres ordered the SEC to turn over Hinman’s disputed documents. These documents contain internal SEC emails and drafts from former corporate CFO William Hinman. The documents contain discovery material from a speech given by Hinman in which he claimed that Bitcoin and Ether are not securities. In his speech, Hinman said:
Based on my understanding of the current state of Ether, the Ethereum network and its decentralized structure, the current offers and sales of Ether are not securities transactions.
The documents are more broadly related to the lawsuit against Ripple Labs, its former CEO Chris Larson and its current CEO Brad Garlinghouse. The SEC filed the lawsuit in 2020 alleging that the three entities, Ripple Labs, Garlinghouse, and Larsen, illegally profited from the sale of Ripple’s native XRP token as unregistered securities.
After a week of great uncertainty for the broader cryptocurrency market, XRP was leading in terms of gains and gained more than 10% following developments.
Coinbase, one of the world’s largest and most popular digital currency exchanges, is partnering with investment giant BlackRock to offer its clients the opportunity to trade digital assets.
Coinbase and BlackRock team up
Joseph Chalom, Global Head of Strategic Ecosystem Partnerships at BlackRock, explained in a recent interview:
Our institutional clients are increasingly interested in gaining exposure to digital asset markets and are focused on how to efficiently manage the operational lifecycle of these assets. This connectivity will allow clients to manage their bitcoin exposures directly within their existing portfolio management and trading workflows for a portfolio-wide view of risk across all asset classes.It’s interesting to see BlackRock make this change. Larry Fink, the company’s president, said about five years ago that bitcoin was the “money laundering index.” He didn’t trust cryptocurrencies, nor did he have any desire, it seems, to get involved with them.
However, it looks like things have changed not exactly for Fink, but also for the company’s clientele. They are starting to realize the true prowess of digital assets and want to get involved. They are eager to take advantage of digital currency offerings and expand their portfolios beyond the standard investment tools they have been exposed to.
For this reason, it appears that BlackRock feels they have no choice but to continue offering digital currencies to customers, regardless of how Fink feels. Executives know there is business to be lost if they don’t change with the times, and offering cryptocurrencies is likely to please everyone sitting at the BlackRock table.
Owen Lau, analyst at Oppenheimer & Co., gave his thoughts on the new partnership, commenting:
After this validation, Coinbase will be able to partner with more traditional financial industries. This shows that even with BlackRock’s size, they will be partnering with a native cryptocurrency company rather than developing their own features.The move comes at a pretty interesting time, given how poorly the crypto space has been doing lately. Bitcoin, for example, is down over 60% from its all-time high of over $68,000 per unit last November. At the moment, the asset is struggling to maintain a position in the $20K range, with the entire crypto space losing around $2 trillion in overall valuation.
A lot of controversy surrounding the exchange
The fact that the space is in such a weak state and yet so many institutions still want to take advantage of it is proof that digital currencies are becoming much more mainstream and legitimate in people’s eyes, even as prices fall.
Coinbase has been at the center of a lot of controversy lately. The company is under SEC investigation and a former employee has been accused of insider trading.
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has revealed its expansion plan to several European markets. The company is in the process of registering a cryptocurrency exchange in Spain, France, Italy and the Netherlands.
Coinbase expands in Europe
Coinbase Global Inc. (Nasdaq: COIN) is planning to expand its operations in Europe, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing an interview with Nana Murugesan, vice president of International and Commercial Development at Coinbase.
Noting that Coinbase is focused on increasing its presence in Europe, the executive revealed that the exchange is in the process of applying for a license in several European markets, including Italy, Spain, France, and the Netherlands.
The Nasdaq-listed company is currently registered in the UK, Ireland and Germany, Murugesan confirmed, noting that Coinbase also recently hired its first employee in Switzerland.
“In all these markets, our intention is to have retail and institutional products”, emphasized the executive, specifying:
It's almost like an existential priority for us to make sure we can fulfill our mission by accelerating our expansion efforts.Coinbase is also open to acquisitions that will accelerate its expansion abroad, Murugesan noted.
However, the crypto exchange is shrinking. Earlier this month, CEO Brian Armstrong announced his company’s plan to lay off 1,100 employees, or 18% of its workforce.
Murugesan said Coinbase’s goal is for the international segment to become a “significant” part of its business. He opined:
That's our goal, but just when we get there, all of that, it's a lot of dependencies.On Monday, global investment bank Goldman Sachs downgraded Coinbase to a “sell” rating. COIN is down more than 85% since it started trading on Nasdaq. At the time of writing, Coinbase Global is trading at $49.75, down over 36% over the past month.