Month: July 2021

  • Building Crypto Out of India

    Building Crypto Out of India

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    by Pankaj Gupta, VP Engineering and Site Lead, India

    I joined Coinbase about two months ago to establish and lead a new tech hub for Coinbase in India. In this blog post, I wanted to share a bit about our plans and ambitions in India and how we are thinking about this hub in general.

    There’s never been a more exciting time for builders working in crypto. This is true worldwide, but especially in India which is seeing a boom in crypto-native talent and in creating and growing important crypto projects — Polygon and Instadapp to name just a couple. It is of course well known that India has a vibrant, world class community of software engineers, technology builders and entrepreneurs. To add to this, we have been pleasantly surprised at the growing expertise in crypto and blockchain technologies as well.

    Building a high quality tech hub

    Coinbase is fully committed to expanding the understanding of crypto and blockchains in the region. It is early days for our India tech hub but it has already taken off with an incredible amount of interest in our open roles from across India. We have ambitious plans for this hub in the near future — we want to hire hundreds of world class engineers in the near term. This team of engineers will be complemented by equally high quality product and design teams, as well as support functions such as recruiting and HR to build out a sustainable, well-rounded tech hub. One of our cherished cultural tenets is top talent in every seat — so even though we wish to hire in large numbers, we are proud to say that each of these new hires is and will be among the topmost talent available anywhere in the world.

    To support our ambitious growth plans in India, we are also exploring startup acquisitions and acquihires. Founders who might be interested in joining Coinbase’s journey and mission, please contact me.

    Coinbase is an ambitious and fast-moving company. As we build our presence in India from scratch, this is an incredible opportunity to work in a start-up-like, fast growing environment. The crypto space — together with its terminology, its protocols, projects, tokens, etc. — is a whole new exciting universe with new stuff to learn about every day. For me, it is frankly like being a kid in a candy store — or a mithai shop if you will — every day 🙂

    Independent and autonomous charters in exciting deep tech areas

    We have intentionally planned out a continuously learning environment and an org structure to maximise learning, growth and impact. We will have teams in all major areas Coinbase works in today — infrastructure, cloud, platform, payments, crypto, blockchains, data engineering, machine learning, growth, product engineering — to name just a few. These teams in India will be led by local engineering directors, who will have large, independent and autonomous charters. They are being intentionally set up for local decision-making to optimise for impact and velocity. These teams will work on a combination of projects that support both our global products and systems, as well as projects in the greater APAC region. We believe this will increase the speed, empowerment, and local decision making, as well as provide a sustainable and better quality of work life for all our teams worldwide.

    In order to be fully functioning, independent and fast-moving, we are also hiring roles — both senior and junior — across product management, user experience, design and program management. In addition, we’re creating a core support team — in areas such as in HR and recruiting — to provide well-rounded support for our India hub.

    Flexible and modern work environment, with plenty of perks

    Given our remote-first strategy, we offer a truly flexible and modern work environment. That means that we’re hiring from all parts of India in order to find the best talent wherever they are or choose to work from in the country. We plan to complement this with physical offices in key cities as well to have a hybrid, flexible environment. In addition to the challenging and meaningful work, we also provide top tier perks and compensation, which allows us to ensure we have top talent in every seat across the company.

    As a product led company, it’s important that our new hires in India truly understand the products and services that they are helping to deliver. That’s why we’re introducing a new program called CIkka — short for “Coinbase India Sikka” — offering each new employee in India a one-time $1000 in crypto when they start. Our expectation is that they’ll leverage this offering to learn about crypto, and will use this knowledge to help us build the next generation of products that will delight our customers around the world.

    Want to do challenging work that has worldwide impact?

    So, what types of employees are we looking for? We want to hire nimble and innovative people who want to make an impact and contribute to our mission of increasing economic freedom in the world. We’re looking for builders, who want to create products that will drive the global cryptoeconomy forward. We have built a culture of sustained innovation in the company, exemplified by Project 10%, where we dedicate 10% of our resources to supporting big product bets.

    To learn more about our innovative culture, please review this recent post from our co-founder and CEO, Brian Armstrong. In it, he outlines our cultural tenets that describe how we treat each other and operate day-to-day at the company. If you’re interested in joining us on our mission, please visit our hiring website and apply for our open positions in India.


    Building Crypto Out of India was originally published in The Coinbase Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.



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  • Scaramucci’s Skybridge Capital Launches Ethereum Fund

    Scaramucci’s Skybridge Capital Launches Ethereum Fund

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    The CEO of Skybridge Capital, Anthony Scaramucci, has announced that the firm will launch an Ethereum fund. The fund is planned to be a private fund. Alongside this, Skybridge Capital has filed for an Ether ETF with the SEC. The fund already has a pending Bitcoin ETF filed with the SEC.

    Anthony Scaramucci was on The Scoop podcast to talk about his bitcoin journey and the fund’s crypto game plan going forward. The fund had made the news late last year when it announced that it had invested $182 million in bitcoin.

    Related Reading | Robinhood Fined $70M For Causing “Significant Harm” To Customers

    This makes it one of the first hedge funds to properly dip its feet into the crypto market. A big bet made in Bitcoin when the coin was still trading for less than $30,000 apiece.

    The investment firm partnered with a number of crypto firms to achieve this. Skybridge Capital expected institutional money to flow into the market and they didn’t want to be too late to get in.

    Skybridge Capital Going All In

    Scaramucci said on the podcast that the fund was fully committed to crypto.

    “We have a full commitment to crypto,” Anthony Scaramucci, CEO, Skybridge Capital

    The CEO explained that they planned to launch the Ethereum fund on July 1st. And then they would file for an ETF. A path that a lot of firms have been taking but have had no success so far.

    This is due to the fact that while the SEC has received numerous filings for Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, it is yet to approve a single one.

    Ethereum chart from TradingView.com

    Ethereum back in the red | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView.com

    With the bull market, the number of Bitcoin and Ether ETFs filed with the SEC has grown significantly. Skybridge Capital now joins in a long line of investment funds waiting on the decision of the SEC.

    Firms wait with bated breaths as the SEC takes its sweet time in deciding if it will approve the ETFs or not. Countries like Canada have approved Bitcoin and Ether ETFs and have recorded much success with the ETFs. But the U.S. SEC is yet to approve a single one.

    Although approvals are not forthcoming, it says a lot about the current state of the market when so many firms are filing for crypto-related ETFs.

    More Institutional Money In The Market

    Scaramucci took the time to talk about the adoption of digital assets in the financial world. The CEO believes that while everyone might not jump in, there will be enough people coming into the market, enough to drive the price of the assets up.

    “I just think it’s one of those weird assets where the higher the prices go, the more people are going to be drawn into the pool,” said Scaramucci.

    Anthony Scaramucci sees the buy-in from Morgan Stanley into its Bitcoin fund as a sign that institutions are ready to get into the crypto market. Hence, he is very bullish that more institutional money is going to flow into the market.

    Related Reading | How Ethereum Can Reach $2 Trillion In Market Cap, Matthew Sigel

    Skybridge Capital is not the only firm with vested interests in the crypto market. MicroStrategy has been ramping up its Bitcoin portfolio over the last year. With a $500 million buy recently pushing the portfolio over 100,000 bitcoins.

    Goldman Sachs had also taken the plunge and had started offering customers Bitcoin and Ether options and futures. It had also filed a Bitcoin ETF with the SEC but like others, it has not gotten approval.

    Skybridge Capital currently has a $500 million Bitcoin fund. And it plans to keep investing and growing the fund and other digital assets funds.

    Featured image from Crytpoknowmics, chart from TradingView.com

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  • Socios partners with Turkish soccer club union to explore digital revenue models

    Socios partners with Turkish soccer club union to explore digital revenue models

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    The soccer world continues to seek out new revenue models amid the coronavirus pandemic, which saw the suspension of league matches in some countries, and new partnerships form to find sustainable answers in the digital space.

    Representing soccer clubs playing in the Süper Lig, Turkey’s primary soccer league, the Turkish Union of Clubs has partnered with fan engagement platform Socios.com to promote innovation in the country’s soccer landscape, according to a July 1 announcement.

    “Few countries in the world match the unique passion that Turks feel for the game of football,” Socios and Chiliz CEO Alex Dreyfus told Cointelegraph:

    “This partnership will benefit the entire Turkish football ecosystem in a critical moment for the industry, in which it is crucial for sports properties to shift their fans’ role from passive to active.”

    Socios already launched fan tokens for six Turkish soccer teams playing across different leagues. Along with over 40 global sports organizations, Turkey’s Alanyaspor, Bursaspor, Galatasaray, Göztepe, İstanbul Başakşehir and Trabzonspor are using fan tokens and Socios’ voting and reward app to engage and monetize their fans.

    Related: Crypto fan tokens a mixed bag for game-deprived soccer fans

    The new partnership makes the sports-focused blockchain company the fan engagement partner of the Union of Clubs. Socios will help the union to apply new technologies to Turkish professional clubs to improve fan engagement, generate new revenue models and increase financial sustainability.

    As part of the deal, the Union of Clubs and Socios.com will co-host a number of workshops and seminars to engage the industry’s main players in conversations around the latest trends affecting the business of football, the announcement reads.

    Ticket sales and streaming deals account for a big part of revenue for the soccer industry. Since the games are either suspended for a period of time or played without a full audience in most leagues during the pandemic, clubs are in need of fresh business models. Clubs see fan tokens as a strategic move to enhance their digital presence and stay closer to fans.