Coinbase exchange is like the NYSE and NASDAQ of cryptocurrencies, says Brian Armstrong

During an interview with Bloomberg, Brian Armstrong, the Co-Founder and CEO of Coinbase, remarked that the exchange platform is like the New York Stock Exchange [NYSE] and NASDAQ for cryptocurrencies. He also elaborated upon the products offered by the exchange platform.

Armstrong stated that he got the inspiration to host a Bitcoin [BTC] wallet from Gmail. The Bitcoin wallet was the first product launched by Coinbase. After the launch of the wallet, a new feature was added on Coinbase which would allow users to buy and sell cryptocurrency as the demand for the feature increased on the platform. He added that Coinbase has about 25 million customers using the feature at present. He went on to say:

“So going on from that, we now have a number of products. Another one which we launched is an exchange. It’s kind of like, you know if Coinbase is the…Fidelity of crypto, you know, our exchange is like the New York Stock Exchange or like NASDAQ in crypto. So we did about $150 billion on crypto-trading on that exchange in the last year and now we have other products coming out as well.

The other products offered by Coinbase are a custodian service for institutional investors, and an assets management firm, which creates index funds or ETFs. The CEO said that the company’s mission is to create an open financial system for the world.

In order to achieve that, the first thing they would aim for is to enable people across the world to get their fiat money into crypto-money. He also stated that they want to be the bridge for people to get money to the cryptocurrency space on a global level.

He said that once the company achieves this, they would shift cryptocurrency into the utility phase. This means that people would have to start using cryptocurrency in their day-to-day life to purchase various good and services. According to him, the utility phase is the “next big challenge” in terms of evolving.

At present, Coinbase has only 5 cryptocurrencies listed on the platform. The main reason is that most of the cryptocurrencies are brand new and possess higher risk, he stated.

According to Armstrong some of the cryptocurrencies are scams. This has led the company to take a very curative approach. The CEO stated that one of the goals of the company is to build a product which is the most trusted in terms of security and compliance, and is easy to use. Furthermore, he said:

“So that means that we are not trying to list everything under the sun, especially as new consumers come in the space and try to understand what they should and shouldn’t buy. It’s kind of like not every company can get listed on the New York Stock Exchange. There is a minimum requirement before you go public.”