[Applause]
hello everybody welcome back to case
studies with the biz doc this week by
popular demand it’s coinbase many people
ask where did they come from how did
they get funded and how did they just
creep this exchange and are they an
exchange or are they a currency what are
they and they’re an app on my phone and
my friends are talking about it so today
I’m gonna break down coinbase into two
things what are they and what do they do
and if you’re a professional trader this
might be seem very basic to you but I
hope there’s a couple nuggets in here
that’ll help you as well so let’s start
where did they come from
well back in 2011 there was a guy named
Brian Armstrong who was an engineer over
at Airbnb Airbnb and he had a friend
that he knew some sort of an
acquaintance that they got connected
named Fred ear Shem if I’m pronouncing
that right I’ve seen a few things on it
and I believe that’s the right
pronunciation and they go and they go to
Y Combinator there they go again that
incredible incubator that’s cranked out
some amazing companies that have great
products and services that we’re using
today that are Anker companies out there
in the marketplace including uber who’s
had its issues but it came out of Y
Combinator so here they go they come out
of Y Combinator with the idea to add the
future of money now Bitcoin was the
early cryptocurrency and at that time
you know you had a variety of questions
around how are we gonna trade these what
are we doing so you had a nascent
ecosystem forming which slept kind of an
open zone where they walked in and said
we’re gonna do it and this is gonna be
the future of money now if it’s really
the future of money you’ve probably got
some sovereign wealth like the dollar is
a sovereign currency that is probably
gonna get messed up which makes sense
because they’re being be made a habit of
messing up people’s homes so maybe he
was the right guy to go disrupt the
financial market now that he had disrupt
the hospitality industry and so they
come out of Y Combinator
and we’re gonna be the future of money
these guys together get five million
dollars from fred wilson of us venture
partners the legendary fred wilson they
also had a little over half a million
dollars in the early funding that had
come out of Y Combinator and some other
sources
certainly not bootstrapping that’s me
we’ll seed money but they were often
running with five million dollars from
us venture partners then later that year
about seven months later they get twenty
five million dollars from in Driessen
whore OS now this in roughly 20 to 24
months since Y Combinator is tremendous
they already have 31 million dollars in
venture funding and away they go so what
do they do they start making deals and
they launch their system and everything
they buy a company called blocker which
was a blockchain tracking company so
they added that capability to what
they’re doing and they cut some deals on
the transaction side they cut a deal
with PayPal and stripe to take Bitcoin
as a valid currency and then on the
commerce side they added overstock and
the DISH Network which is a satellite
television company and then we all know
what overstock is you can buy anything
in anything from basically a you know a
more mature version of eBay if you will
and so away they go to get to 2015 and
things are really going well these are
very serious commercial partners to have
and they raised 75 million dollars from
dfj and once again Tim Draper strikes
again making a big bet on something on
the way up and joining DFJ the New York
Stock Exchange which was very big
because at this point in 2015 according
to everything that I’ve ever read and
things I’ve heard and I hope this isn’t
folklore this was the very first time
and there was a couple banks in here too
that mature financial institutions had
crossed the line and invested and the
Bitcoin side and that the the new fiat
currency side of the street as all this
emergence was coming and so that was a
defining moment a year later in 16 10
million dollars from the bank of Tokyo
and more importantly they announced in
2015 the coin base exchange where you
can actually trade to get Bitcoin
because there’s two ways to get Bitcoin
one is the hard way is you become a
miner and mining is very complicated we
could do a case study on mining and the
amount of energy and equip
that takes to be a participant in the
Bitcoin mining ecosystem so that if you
are the clearer of something that you
get that sliver of a Bitcoin you know
there’s a lot that can be talked about
about the in efficiencies of that and
the energy consumption and the effort
and utility and equipment that needs to
do that the other way take dollars and
trade them for a Bitcoin at prevailing
rates on an exchange well sometime later
they rebranded that the global digital
asset exchange so coinbase became this
so let me summarize that a little bit
better what coin base is with the G Dax
is one you’ve got the G Dax which is the
exchange where they have an order book
the buy orders the sell orders and those
get reconciled to complete a trade and
then they also have the brokerage where
they work with you and me as individual
investors and we have an account and we
actually they are actually the broker
for the trade having both of those
together allows them to go end-to-end
now they make fees on this and they also
make these operating the exchange and
then they’re also something of the
kingmaker if you want to use that phrase
because anything they’re putting on the
exchange is given credibility because
now it’s being traded on coin base which
is seen as a very credible exchange
thanks to what they’ve done
with the G Dax it’s 17 it got really big
a hundred and eight million dollars in
venture from IB P and at the end of the
year this is pretty significant take a
look at this at the end of the year the
it was asserted that they were actually
in December I believe it was the most
downloaded app on the Apple iTunes
Appstore now that’s saying something
because usually the social media apps or
the social texting apps and games are
usually up there not business apps not
financial apps it’s usually one of those
three social media texting apps like
whatsapp or says or you know what we all
know is games games games but to have
one of these here this shows you how
much heat there is getting into the
market into treating Bitcoin which was
commensurate with all of the great price
inflation that we saw in the
numbers that were up there they also in
17 very importantly received the bit
license in New York which was a license
to buy and sell so now that they could
have a license to be an exchange to
trade for Bitcoin Bitcoin cash litecoin
and aetherium or ether and that was what
they were permitted to trade but that’s
the lion’s share of the market they’re
leaving out ripple and a lot of the
small ones so now they are licensed to
do that and then in 2018 as I like to
say the cops showed up the IRS comes out
and says hey we want to know you know
every person that made a trade or a
transaction that was greater than twenty
thousand dollars on the G Dax where they
were buying and selling this digital
currency because we want to tax it just
like regular stocks hold it a year or
more capital gains taxes collected hold
it less than a year ordinary income is
collected nonetheless the cops show up
and the IRS says you now have to start
reporting and we want information so
that we can properly assess taxes so
which brings us to okay where are they
today they have a vision to be an open
financial system meaning to be the
future of an actual currency ecosystem
and right now today they are really two
companies the first company is they are
the single most well funded and you can
see over 200 million dollars in venture
funding here and funding coming from
traditional bank of Tokyo New York Stock
Exchange and some others so they got
this funding so making them the most
well funded digital asset exchange
digital currency exchange and on the
other side they are nothing more than a
retail I guess you could just say like a
retail broker where they have a wallet
and they have the trading capabilities
from the exchange you can do from your
wallet and then they’ve also announced
this recently custody where they could
actually hold custody of assets which
means that even the larger banks and
other traders are going to be able like
investment banks being able to have
coinbase actually hold
study of Bitcoin so coinbase brokerage
is where you and I can go to buy and
sell these cryptocurrency assets
similar the way we would go to Charles
Schwab or Ameritrade or something like
that to go to buy and sell stocks it’s
open to retail and then we’ll pay a fee
anywhere from one to four percent
depending on what it is now if we were
directly trading on G Dax without
brokerage there’s lower fees involved
but that kind of is Foggs the issue the
fact is they’ve got a brokerage you and
I can open an account and then put cash
in the account and trade these on the
exchange just like we would do going to
swab put some money into account and buy
some shares of Apple or Facebook and so
it’s all coming together right now
you’ve got the exchange and you get the
broker now the nice thing about both of
those is when you put them together
there’s certain benefits that coinbase
has because sources of liquidity and
other things are very important if
you’re gonna be clearing trades because
this person clears the trade they need
to get their money you need to collect
the money from here and sometimes
there’s a float in the middle so you
need appropriate liquidity and other
things in place so that you can
successfully be that and be in
compliance with securities laws that
govern what you have to have in terms of
assets and other backup before you can
actually be the man in the middle
operating the exchange so that’s what
they are the most well funded blockchain
company in terms of exchange and a
retail broker so let’s talk a little bit
about the significance of coin base as
an exchange there’s a couple things here
first let’s talk about security and
safety they’ve had no hacks that’s very
significant that makes people very
confident that this isn’t a bunch of
engineers and hoodies making kind of a
hack together system this is a very
strong system that hasn’t been hacked
which makes people comfortable trading
their dollars their euros or whatever
other currency they’re bringing in to be
in their accounts so they can begin
treating in the cryptocurrencies and
when you’re trading in the
cryptocurrencies also you want to be
confident that they can clear it there’s
something else that’s interesting when
you think of the New York Stock Exchange
you think of Nasdaq that’s where places
where stocks that are treated on those
there’s high confidence in those people
say oh it’s treating the New York Stock
Exchange I have faith in that there’s
also in United States penny stocks that
are Traven traded on what’s called the
OTC or over-the-counter there’s less
confidence in those companies what has
happened with coinbase is they are now
thought of as a very strong exchange
similar to the New York Stock Exchange
or Nasdaq which means that when they put
a green light on trading a currency and
as I indicated they trade Bitcoin
Bitcoin cash litecoin and aetherium with
they were to add another cryptocurrency
like perhaps they bring in ripple and
they trade that that is sort of a stamp
of approval that they’re putting on that
cryptocurrency and it’s gonna experience
appreciation because they’re seen as
being a quality market or a
confidence-building market you follow
that and so they can really be a creator
of value by green-lighting a currency to
be traded on their exchange people are
gonna say ah there must be some
confidence and stability in that and
you’re gonna see speculation purchase
which is going to cause the price to go
up so it’s very significant that that
they are seen is this because they’re
going to be something of a they’ll be
determining winners just by greens
alighting something to come on their
exchange just like today there are some
companies are able to jump off the
over-the-counter the OTC onto the Nasdaq
or even New York Stock Exchange and then
get back on their feet because you have
to meet certain requirements and certain
size and profits and things like that
there has to be certain things you don’t
just write a letter and say I want to be
on the New York Stock Exchange
there are securities regulations but
once you cross those you’re seeing is
more credible stock same thing with
these crypto currencies and that’s why
being an exchange that the
retail investor maybe you and me may be
a big investment fund trust is so
important and it’s also why you start to
see price speculation going up and down
such as what’s going on with Bitcoin
coin is going up and down like the
Russian space program up down up down
and when it comes down somebody dies you
take a look at those people that said
they were taking money out of their
401ks or on Christmas time and they were
putting it all into Bitcoin what bitcoin
was like 17 to 20 thousand there you
know they are today beginning of
February 2018 just a little while later
it’s like if 8,000 there’s only one word
for that kind of a fall and that is damn
that is a long way to fall especially if
it’s somebody who’s an unsophisticated
investor who’s jumping in on these
cryptocurrencies and doesn’t understand
the risk in the volatility regardless of
how confident they feel because o
coinbase is there this seems like a
brokerage saying I have an app here it
seems like I can trust them all of that
may be true but the risk in the market
is still present so you got to protect
yourself and be careful with it and so
that is the overview of coinbase I hope
you found that helpful Wow
no sooner that we finished filming
coinbase and the case study and all that
it’s about then look at what happened to
the market there’s only one word for
what’s going on right now and that is
damn one of the things that was very
interesting in this is what was
happening with coinbase remember
coinbase operates a brokerage where they
broker the trades for you and then they
also operate G Dax which actually the
market for those buy and sell orders or
the order books gets settled so they are
making money either
either way coinbase makes money but we
can’t go further and publish this
without adding this little segment to it
look at what happened to the valuations
of cryptocurrencies when this market was
going down suddenly coinbase was down at
just a little over six thousand dollars
I think it bumped a little bit back up
6500 7000 but it is way down and when we
were filming this we were at 8,000 down
from almost 20,000 around Christmas so
the volatility that’s in the market is
clear but now coinbase which is what the
case study is about remember they make
money either way operating a market the
G Dax and being a brokerage taking fees
on the individual trades so either way
coinbase makes money
now our cryptocurrencies here to stay
well that all the Pens Goldman Sachs
seems to think that
cryptocurrencies are going to zero it’s
going to be an important lesson for
America and the world and then they’ll
be replaced by other digital currencies
that quote do things right now I don’t
know is this Goldman Sachs saying this
because they are a naysayer and didn’t
have a big play in crypto currencies who
knows but it’s very interesting that a
very powerful player like that is up
there talking about it what doesn’t
change is the vision and brilliance of
the founders of coinbase and what they
have done in a very very real
new segment crypto currencies and how
they had built coinbase to what it is
today we had to add this because of what
happened
please subscribe to value tainment
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and until next time with another case
study I am Tom Ellsworth the biz doc and
I hope I left you better than I found you
hello everybody welcome back to case
studies with the biz doc this week by
popular demand it’s coinbase many people
ask where did they come from how did
they get funded and how did they just
creep this exchange and are they an
exchange or are they a currency what are
they and they’re an app on my phone and
my friends are talking about it so today
I’m gonna break down coinbase into two
things what are they and what do they do
and if you’re a professional trader this
might be seem very basic to you but I
hope there’s a couple nuggets in here
that’ll help you as well so let’s start
where did they come from
well back in 2011 there was a guy named
Brian Armstrong who was an engineer over
at Airbnb Airbnb and he had a friend
that he knew some sort of an
acquaintance that they got connected
named Fred ear Shem if I’m pronouncing
that right I’ve seen a few things on it
and I believe that’s the right
pronunciation and they go and they go to
Y Combinator there they go again that
incredible incubator that’s cranked out
some amazing companies that have great
products and services that we’re using
today that are Anker companies out there
in the marketplace including uber who’s
had its issues but it came out of Y
Combinator so here they go they come out
of Y Combinator with the idea to add the
future of money now Bitcoin was the
early cryptocurrency and at that time
you know you had a variety of questions
around how are we gonna trade these what
are we doing so you had a nascent
ecosystem forming which slept kind of an
open zone where they walked in and said
we’re gonna do it and this is gonna be
the future of money now if it’s really
the future of money you’ve probably got
some sovereign wealth like the dollar is
a sovereign currency that is probably
gonna get messed up which makes sense
because they’re being be made a habit of
messing up people’s homes so maybe he
was the right guy to go disrupt the
financial market now that he had disrupt
the hospitality industry and so they
come out of Y Combinator
and we’re gonna be the future of money
these guys together get five million
dollars from fred wilson of us venture
partners the legendary fred wilson they
also had a little over half a million
dollars in the early funding that had
come out of Y Combinator and some other
sources
certainly not bootstrapping that’s me
we’ll seed money but they were often
running with five million dollars from
us venture partners then later that year
about seven months later they get twenty
five million dollars from in Driessen
whore OS now this in roughly 20 to 24
months since Y Combinator is tremendous
they already have 31 million dollars in
venture funding and away they go so what
do they do they start making deals and
they launch their system and everything
they buy a company called blocker which
was a blockchain tracking company so
they added that capability to what
they’re doing and they cut some deals on
the transaction side they cut a deal
with PayPal and stripe to take Bitcoin
as a valid currency and then on the
commerce side they added overstock and
the DISH Network which is a satellite
television company and then we all know
what overstock is you can buy anything
in anything from basically a you know a
more mature version of eBay if you will
and so away they go to get to 2015 and
things are really going well these are
very serious commercial partners to have
and they raised 75 million dollars from
dfj and once again Tim Draper strikes
again making a big bet on something on
the way up and joining DFJ the New York
Stock Exchange which was very big
because at this point in 2015 according
to everything that I’ve ever read and
things I’ve heard and I hope this isn’t
folklore this was the very first time
and there was a couple banks in here too
that mature financial institutions had
crossed the line and invested and the
Bitcoin side and that the the new fiat
currency side of the street as all this
emergence was coming and so that was a
defining moment a year later in 16 10
million dollars from the bank of Tokyo
and more importantly they announced in
2015 the coin base exchange where you
can actually trade to get Bitcoin
because there’s two ways to get Bitcoin
one is the hard way is you become a
miner and mining is very complicated we
could do a case study on mining and the
amount of energy and equip
that takes to be a participant in the
Bitcoin mining ecosystem so that if you
are the clearer of something that you
get that sliver of a Bitcoin you know
there’s a lot that can be talked about
about the in efficiencies of that and
the energy consumption and the effort
and utility and equipment that needs to
do that the other way take dollars and
trade them for a Bitcoin at prevailing
rates on an exchange well sometime later
they rebranded that the global digital
asset exchange so coinbase became this
so let me summarize that a little bit
better what coin base is with the G Dax
is one you’ve got the G Dax which is the
exchange where they have an order book
the buy orders the sell orders and those
get reconciled to complete a trade and
then they also have the brokerage where
they work with you and me as individual
investors and we have an account and we
actually they are actually the broker
for the trade having both of those
together allows them to go end-to-end
now they make fees on this and they also
make these operating the exchange and
then they’re also something of the
kingmaker if you want to use that phrase
because anything they’re putting on the
exchange is given credibility because
now it’s being traded on coin base which
is seen as a very credible exchange
thanks to what they’ve done
with the G Dax it’s 17 it got really big
a hundred and eight million dollars in
venture from IB P and at the end of the
year this is pretty significant take a
look at this at the end of the year the
it was asserted that they were actually
in December I believe it was the most
downloaded app on the Apple iTunes
Appstore now that’s saying something
because usually the social media apps or
the social texting apps and games are
usually up there not business apps not
financial apps it’s usually one of those
three social media texting apps like
whatsapp or says or you know what we all
know is games games games but to have
one of these here this shows you how
much heat there is getting into the
market into treating Bitcoin which was
commensurate with all of the great price
inflation that we saw in the
numbers that were up there they also in
17 very importantly received the bit
license in New York which was a license
to buy and sell so now that they could
have a license to be an exchange to
trade for Bitcoin Bitcoin cash litecoin
and aetherium or ether and that was what
they were permitted to trade but that’s
the lion’s share of the market they’re
leaving out ripple and a lot of the
small ones so now they are licensed to
do that and then in 2018 as I like to
say the cops showed up the IRS comes out
and says hey we want to know you know
every person that made a trade or a
transaction that was greater than twenty
thousand dollars on the G Dax where they
were buying and selling this digital
currency because we want to tax it just
like regular stocks hold it a year or
more capital gains taxes collected hold
it less than a year ordinary income is
collected nonetheless the cops show up
and the IRS says you now have to start
reporting and we want information so
that we can properly assess taxes so
which brings us to okay where are they
today they have a vision to be an open
financial system meaning to be the
future of an actual currency ecosystem
and right now today they are really two
companies the first company is they are
the single most well funded and you can
see over 200 million dollars in venture
funding here and funding coming from
traditional bank of Tokyo New York Stock
Exchange and some others so they got
this funding so making them the most
well funded digital asset exchange
digital currency exchange and on the
other side they are nothing more than a
retail I guess you could just say like a
retail broker where they have a wallet
and they have the trading capabilities
from the exchange you can do from your
wallet and then they’ve also announced
this recently custody where they could
actually hold custody of assets which
means that even the larger banks and
other traders are going to be able like
investment banks being able to have
coinbase actually hold
study of Bitcoin so coinbase brokerage
is where you and I can go to buy and
sell these cryptocurrency assets
similar the way we would go to Charles
Schwab or Ameritrade or something like
that to go to buy and sell stocks it’s
open to retail and then we’ll pay a fee
anywhere from one to four percent
depending on what it is now if we were
directly trading on G Dax without
brokerage there’s lower fees involved
but that kind of is Foggs the issue the
fact is they’ve got a brokerage you and
I can open an account and then put cash
in the account and trade these on the
exchange just like we would do going to
swab put some money into account and buy
some shares of Apple or Facebook and so
it’s all coming together right now
you’ve got the exchange and you get the
broker now the nice thing about both of
those is when you put them together
there’s certain benefits that coinbase
has because sources of liquidity and
other things are very important if
you’re gonna be clearing trades because
this person clears the trade they need
to get their money you need to collect
the money from here and sometimes
there’s a float in the middle so you
need appropriate liquidity and other
things in place so that you can
successfully be that and be in
compliance with securities laws that
govern what you have to have in terms of
assets and other backup before you can
actually be the man in the middle
operating the exchange so that’s what
they are the most well funded blockchain
company in terms of exchange and a
retail broker so let’s talk a little bit
about the significance of coin base as
an exchange there’s a couple things here
first let’s talk about security and
safety they’ve had no hacks that’s very
significant that makes people very
confident that this isn’t a bunch of
engineers and hoodies making kind of a
hack together system this is a very
strong system that hasn’t been hacked
which makes people comfortable trading
their dollars their euros or whatever
other currency they’re bringing in to be
in their accounts so they can begin
treating in the cryptocurrencies and
when you’re trading in the
cryptocurrencies also you want to be
confident that they can clear it there’s
something else that’s interesting when
you think of the New York Stock Exchange
you think of Nasdaq that’s where places
where stocks that are treated on those
there’s high confidence in those people
say oh it’s treating the New York Stock
Exchange I have faith in that there’s
also in United States penny stocks that
are Traven traded on what’s called the
OTC or over-the-counter there’s less
confidence in those companies what has
happened with coinbase is they are now
thought of as a very strong exchange
similar to the New York Stock Exchange
or Nasdaq which means that when they put
a green light on trading a currency and
as I indicated they trade Bitcoin
Bitcoin cash litecoin and aetherium with
they were to add another cryptocurrency
like perhaps they bring in ripple and
they trade that that is sort of a stamp
of approval that they’re putting on that
cryptocurrency and it’s gonna experience
appreciation because they’re seen as
being a quality market or a
confidence-building market you follow
that and so they can really be a creator
of value by green-lighting a currency to
be traded on their exchange people are
gonna say ah there must be some
confidence and stability in that and
you’re gonna see speculation purchase
which is going to cause the price to go
up so it’s very significant that that
they are seen is this because they’re
going to be something of a they’ll be
determining winners just by greens
alighting something to come on their
exchange just like today there are some
companies are able to jump off the
over-the-counter the OTC onto the Nasdaq
or even New York Stock Exchange and then
get back on their feet because you have
to meet certain requirements and certain
size and profits and things like that
there has to be certain things you don’t
just write a letter and say I want to be
on the New York Stock Exchange
there are securities regulations but
once you cross those you’re seeing is
more credible stock same thing with
these crypto currencies and that’s why
being an exchange that the
retail investor maybe you and me may be
a big investment fund trust is so
important and it’s also why you start to
see price speculation going up and down
such as what’s going on with Bitcoin
coin is going up and down like the
Russian space program up down up down
and when it comes down somebody dies you
take a look at those people that said
they were taking money out of their
401ks or on Christmas time and they were
putting it all into Bitcoin what bitcoin
was like 17 to 20 thousand there you
know they are today beginning of
February 2018 just a little while later
it’s like if 8,000 there’s only one word
for that kind of a fall and that is damn
that is a long way to fall especially if
it’s somebody who’s an unsophisticated
investor who’s jumping in on these
cryptocurrencies and doesn’t understand
the risk in the volatility regardless of
how confident they feel because o
coinbase is there this seems like a
brokerage saying I have an app here it
seems like I can trust them all of that
may be true but the risk in the market
is still present so you got to protect
yourself and be careful with it and so
that is the overview of coinbase I hope
you found that helpful Wow
no sooner that we finished filming
coinbase and the case study and all that
it’s about then look at what happened to
the market there’s only one word for
what’s going on right now and that is
damn one of the things that was very
interesting in this is what was
happening with coinbase remember
coinbase operates a brokerage where they
broker the trades for you and then they
also operate G Dax which actually the
market for those buy and sell orders or
the order books gets settled so they are
making money either
either way coinbase makes money but we
can’t go further and publish this
without adding this little segment to it
look at what happened to the valuations
of cryptocurrencies when this market was
going down suddenly coinbase was down at
just a little over six thousand dollars
I think it bumped a little bit back up
6500 7000 but it is way down and when we
were filming this we were at 8,000 down
from almost 20,000 around Christmas so
the volatility that’s in the market is
clear but now coinbase which is what the
case study is about remember they make
money either way operating a market the
G Dax and being a brokerage taking fees
on the individual trades so either way
coinbase makes money
now our cryptocurrencies here to stay
well that all the Pens Goldman Sachs
seems to think that
cryptocurrencies are going to zero it’s
going to be an important lesson for
America and the world and then they’ll
be replaced by other digital currencies
that quote do things right now I don’t
know is this Goldman Sachs saying this
because they are a naysayer and didn’t
have a big play in crypto currencies who
knows but it’s very interesting that a
very powerful player like that is up
there talking about it what doesn’t
change is the vision and brilliance of
the founders of coinbase and what they
have done in a very very real
new segment crypto currencies and how
they had built coinbase to what it is
today we had to add this because of what
happened
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