Crypto exchange and wallet Coinbase has announced that they will be launching Coinbase Venture, a fund to finance “compelling” companies in the crypto space, according to a Coinbase blog post published Thursday, April 5.
Coinbase writes that they will be “providing financing to promising early stage companies that have the teams and ideas that can move the space forward in a positive, meaningful way.”
The post continues by stating that the goal of Coinbase Ventures is “simply to help the most compelling companies in the space to flourish,” highlighting that this doesn’t mean that they will need to “formaliz[e] partner relationships with such companies, as some corporate venture programs do.”
In an interview with CNBC’s Fast Money April 5, Asiff Hirji, the president and COO of Coinbase, said that the company plans to “invest off our balance sheet into crypto companies,” with the fund already at $15 mln, with room for growth.
The official blog post notes that Coinbase Ventures may “invest in companies that ostensibly look competitive with Coinbase,” because “it’s in everyone’s interest to see the ecosystem innovate.”
Hirji said that Coinbase Ventures is not aiming invest in cryptocurrencies, particularly those that their customers trade, clarifying:
“[I]t’s not about trying to line up tokens that we would put on our exchange [...] We are not investing in currencies because we do not want even the appearance of a conflict of interest.”
Coinbase had announced last week that they now support the ERC20 protocol, evidently a move towards listing ERC20 altcoins on their platform in the future.
However, Hirji said to CNBC that while Coinbase is not currently adding any new cryptocurrencies to its platforms, they will be able to once regulation becomes more coherent.
This is OK... until you take the time to ask:
Why would they be helping "companies that ostensibly look competitive with Coinbase" just because they care about the ecosystem?
I'm not 100% sure on this, of course, but maybe they're not just doing this so that they can have competition.
P.S. Yeah, maybe they can buy / 'take ideas form' those other companies; that is, I think, the most probable scenario
I don't think they'll be helping new exchanges but if they will then they will surely benefit from them. Businesses that help smaller businesses usually do it for their own gain, whether it be to increase their finances or to have full undisputed control over the market, which is what I think will happen here. They help a small startup on the condition that they own a percentage of it or influence it and thus both parties end up happy. It's not really scammy, they offer finances to help start the business and it's only right to return the favour I suppose.
Yeah, makes sense to me, maybe I judged to fast
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