Coinbase is a digital currency exchange headquartered in San Francisco, California. They broker exchanges of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, and Litecoin with fiat currencies in around 32 countries, and bitcoin transactions and storage in 190 countries worldwide. Coinbase was founded in 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam.
It has been a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. since October 2018.
Coinbase is one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. As of May 2019, Coinbase had 13 million users. Coinbase allows its users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies and also provides a wallet for them to store their cryptocurrencies.
Coinbase charges a fee for its services, which is generally 1.49% for buying or selling cryptocurrencies, but this fee may be higher or lower depending on the amount of money being transacted and the payment method used.
Coinbase is registered as a Money Service Business (MSB) with FinCEN in the United States. This means that Coinbase is subject to certain regulations regarding anti-money laundering (AML) and countering-the-financing-of-terrorism (CFT).
In order to comply with these regulations, Coinbase has implemented Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) procedures. These procedures require Coinbase to verify the identity of its users and collect certain information from them before they can buy or sell cryptocurrencies on the platform.
Coinbase is also registered as a Virtual Currency Provider (VCP) with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the United Kingdom. This registration allows Coinbase to operate as a cryptocurrency exchange in the UK and provides certain protections for UK users of Coinbase’s platform.
Despite its compliance with KYC/AML regulations and registration with financial regulators in multiple jurisdictions, some people have criticized Coinbase for not being transparent enough about its ownership and management structure. In particular, there has been concern about who actually owns or controls Coinbase given that Brian Armstrong is the only named founder/co-founder of the company and that Fred Ehrsam is no longer listed as a co-founder on Coinbase’s website.
There are also concerns about whether or not Brian Armstrong actually controls the majority of voting rights within Coinbase given that he holds a Class B share which gives him 10 votes per share while all other shareholders only have one vote per share.