Proof of alignment. What we’ve already done to align… | by Coinbase | Jan, 2022

What we’ve already accomplished to align ourselves with our prospects, and what we’re doing subsequent.

By Paul Grewal, Chief Authorized Officer

Coinbase is dedicated to offering a good, clear and equal expertise throughout our suite of buying and selling merchandise. We take quite a lot of steps to make sure this, together with:

• We don’t coordinate asset itemizing choices with anybody circuitously concerned with our evaluation and itemizing course of. This contains members of our administration crew that don’t sit on our asset itemizing committee (nearly all of Coinbase’s management crew doesn’t sit on our itemizing committee), our board administrators, enterprise capitalists, or outdoors traders
• Coinbase Ventures has by no means bought tokens from investments that it has made, and is staffed by a separate crew with no affect over which property could also be supported on Coinbase platforms
• We’ve no management over, or proprietary details about, the plans of early digital asset backers, together with their shopping for or promoting actions for property we checklist.
• We’re frequently wanting into extra mechanisms to align ourselves even additional with our prospects, beginning with enabling customers to trace Coinbase’s personal portfolio of digital property for informational functions.

Coinbase’s objective is to supply a good and environment friendly market. As talked about throughout our launch of Asset Hub, our objective is to checklist each compliant asset potential. In our ideally suited world, Coinbase would merely checklist each asset that met the requisite authorized and cybersecurity requirements, whereas giving our prospects as a lot data as potential to make educated funding choices. Being listed on our alternate wouldn’t be thought-about an endorsement; it will merely be a sign that the asset had met our itemizing requirements.

The problem is that as a result of an asset itemizing will be time consuming each from a technical and authorized perspective, it’s nonetheless scarce; as a result of it’s scarce, it’s thought-about invaluable; as a result of it’s invaluable, it’s thought-about by some to be an endorsement. That is much like the dynamic that ensued round Twitter verification, the place what was initially merely an anti-impersonation measure inadvertently grew to become a standing image.

As a part of our dedication to transparency, we need to shed additional mild on how our present itemizing course of works, in addition to sharing extra data on the steps we take to make sure that our itemizing and ventures groups are saved fully unbiased, and, lastly, provide some perception into how we take into consideration the crypto property we share on our company steadiness sheet.

First, as we’ve mentioned earlier than, right here’s how we function.

• Coinbase makes itemizing choices by way of a proper course of run by a particular committee known as the Digital Asset Itemizing Group, which follows common procedures, that are documented in formal insurance policies, and which relevant regulators should evaluation and approve.
• The Digital Asset Itemizing Group votes on what property will be listed, knowledgeable by a rigorous vetting/evaluation course of that evaluates property for compliance, authorized, and data safety issues.
• The voting group doesn’t embody Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong or different Coinbase International Board members.

• The vote isn’t impacted by whether or not Coinbase Ventures or our traders have a stake within the asset, and Coinbase Ventures is clear in disclosing our pursuits in tasks.
• Coinbase has a battle of curiosity coverage that forestalls board members or Coinbase workers from being concerned in a list resolution the place they’ve a monetary curiosity.
• The vast majority of property that the Digital Asset Itemizing Group critiques are submitted immediately by asset issuers by way of our Asset Hub portal.
• This course of is strict, and nearly all of property submitted for analysis are rejected.

• Coinbase restricts all workers from buying and selling the tokens it’s contemplating for itemizing to ensure nobody at Coinbase is entrance operating property, even when they don’t work on our asset listings crew.

• Coinbase doesn’t coordinate itemizing choices or timing with early backers of a challenge (together with VCs) or in property being reviewed.
• We’ve no management over or proprietary visibility into the plans of early token backers (VCs, founding crew, and so on.) on their promoting actions.
• As a result of buying and selling usually happens throughout many exchanges (not simply Coinbase), and since massive holders and even asset issuers are sometimes unknown, we do not need the power to play a job in any lock-up sort mechanisms.

• Coinbase Ventures has by no means bought tokens from investments that it has made, nor does it have any affect over which property are supported on Coinbase platforms.
• We’re long run hodlers of our investments. It might make sense to liquidate a few of our holdings sooner or later, however we don’t presently have any plans to.
• Our Ventures and Listings groups function fully independently of one another, with no overlap in personnel or shared data.

• Coinbase holds on our steadiness sheet nearly all of the property that we assist on our platforms, which helps make sure that our pursuits are aligned with these of our prospects.
• Like our Coinbase Ventures investments, we’re additionally hodling these property with a long run view, with no current plans to promote.
• Although it’s impractical to carry massive positions of some decrease liquidity property, we purpose to have some company publicity throughout the breadth of our supported property.

With that stated, we’re at all times taking a look at new methods to extra clearly present alignment with our prospects. Whereas the Coinbase Ventures portfolio is already public, and we’ve additionally printed our materials crypto property held in our 10-Q, we plan to make our holdings much more clear.

Quickly we’ll be updating our asset disclosures in a manner that makes our holdings much more apparent, by exhibiting (a) which property are at present held by Coinbase and (b) which property had been backed by Coinbase Ventures, whether or not they’re at present listed or not.

Now, we don’t declare that our portfolio is one of the best. Nor will we advise that you just purchase it. However by making it much more clear within the consumer interface as to which property are Coinbase-held and Coinbase-backed, you may resolve whether or not or to not align your self with Coinbase’s crypto holdings. You can even select to pursue a totally totally different technique. And that’s our objective: to supply a good and environment friendly market the place the individuals resolve.