Will FTX be able to overtake Coinbase?īinance seems to understand that it’s often better to ask for forgiveness than permission. arm in 2020, CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX have beefed up their status as leading voices on policy, in the form of both Congressional testimony and ex-government hires. The global exchange, meanwhile, has hit a $32 billion valuation. FTX’s U.S.-specific operation is smaller - trading volume “only” grew sevenfold in 2021 - but that didn’t stop the company from making a big splash on Sand Hill Road, raising $400 million at an $8 billion valuation earlier this year. FTX has 5 million users, compared to Coinbase’s 89 million ( or 11.4 million monthly transacting) users, but the exchanges’ trading volumes are shockingly similar thanks to FTX’s 2,400% year-over-year volume growth. If you think of the crypto exchange landscape through the lens of video games, Coinbase may have found success by serving as the base game and converting a wide group of casuals into fans, but FTX has found its own success mirroring the microtransactions market and turning the die-hards into whales. Will Coinbase be able to build on its success moving forward? Coinbase has assumed that role by striking a balance between resembling the archetype of a traditionally powerful company and staying true to its mission of reinventing the financial system. The company is playing the provocateur in global discussions of regulatory issues, and Armstrong himself speaks directly to those concerned about crypto’s role in world affairs, a cohort that has grown in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In the process, CEO Brian Armstrong has become a de facto mouthpiece for the crypto industry. But the IPO and the coming-out party for crypto that ensued have effectively convinced Wall Street of what the DeFi community has long known: Crypto doesn’t belong at the kids’ table, but in the boardroom and in hedge fund portfolios.
So, when Coinbase went public last year, the company was viewed as two kids in an $85 billion trench coat. The crypto industry has always grappled with a perception problem, fueled by high-profile skeptics (or begrudging acceptors) like Jamie Dimon and Bill Gates doubting the maturity and viability of alternative currencies at large. In the last decade, Coinbase has taken crypto mainstream and made a boatload of money doing it. So, which companies are leading the industry? Which exchanges might overcome regulatory hurdles, and which face a tougher challenge? And how is an explosion in asset prices and millions of dollars in advertising translating into real revenue and users? This leaves out important players like Robinhood, Cash App and dozens of others that offer some form of crypto trading, but we’ll talk about what these other players mean for the industry in the “What Happens Next” section after the leaderboard.
To narrow down the list of companies in this Power Index, we only ranked companies that offered trading of 10 or more cryptocurrencies, allowed transactions in the United States and were exclusively focused on crypto. Regulators in some countries are in the process of banning or restricting trading, while others seek to craft legislation to boost it, all of which could have profound impacts on the strategies each of these companies employ. With millions of potential new customers every year, crypto exchanges are using armies of lawyers and billion-dollar war chests to fight legal battles and advertise in an attempt to win business and influence legislation. Today, Coinbase, FTX and Binance dominate the market across the world, with hundreds of smaller players and long-established financial institutions vying to replace them.
The path there hasn’t been easy: from multimillion-dollar thefts to bankruptcies and liquidations to regulatory shutdowns, exchanges have met nearly every demise you can think of, with more sure to come. Crypto trading is one of them.įrom its humble origins as a difficult and esoteric process dominated by nerds and programmers, crypto trading can now be done in minutes by anyone with a credit card and a Coinbase account. įew industries have gone from not existing to being worth hundreds of billions of dollars in less than 15 years. Welcome back to the Protocol Power Index, a ranking of the most powerful companies by tech industry subsector, as well as the companies best positioned to challenge them.
0 kommentar(er)
