Leaving The Coinbase, Neutrino Finds Employees Who Once Worked For A Surveillance Tech Company 

Coinbase And Neutrino

Being criticised for Coinbase’s acquisition of the blockchain analytics start-up Neutrino were the founder’s ties to the controversial surveillance technology company called Hacking Team. CEO Brian Armstrong said in a blog post that Coinbase along with employees of Neutrino previously working at Hacking Team transitioning out of Coinbase instead of joining the team in London which was originally planned. 

Mapping blockchain networks Neutrino focuses on crypto token transactions where one of the main services is working with law enforcement to track stolen digital assets investigating ransomware attacks analysing activity on the darknet. CEO Giancarlo Russo, CTO Alberto Ornaghi and the chief research officer Marco Valleri had worked at Hacking Team a security and surveillance tech company before launching Neutrino and has been criticised for selling products to governments with the history of human rights violations that included Egypt, Kazakhstan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Turkey. Thereby it was reported that the Hacking Team’s malware has been found on the computers of the activists and journalists. 

Concerning many members of the blockchain community was the close link between Hacking Team and Neutrino. CEO of Clovyr, Amber Baldet as well as the former lead of JP Morgan’s blockchain program had told that given the number of accounts opened by Coinbase, they have chosen to implement compliance tools with the relationship coming with law enforcement impacting a lot of people.

Thereafter Armstrong said in his post that there were gaps in the diligence process as Coinbase was shopping for the blockchain analytics start-up to acquire. 

The Coinbase Experts In Neutrino

Further on he wrote that they looked hard at technology and security of the Neutrino product and did not properly evaluate everything from the perspective of the mission and values as a crypto company. They then took some time digging further into this over the past week together with the Neutrino team coming to an agreement where those who previously worked at the Hacking Team transitioning out of Coinbase. As it was not an easy decision, whereas the prior work presents a conflict with their mission, thankful to the Neutrino team engaging with them on the outcome.

Seeking to be the most secure, trusted, and legally compliant bridge to cryptocurrency, Coinbase needed to make practical tradeoffs running the modern regulated exchange as they did not make the right tradeoff with a specific case fixing it and finding another way serving the customers complying with the law. 

After raising a $300 million Series E Coinbase achieved an $8 billion valuation and comes focused on broadening its user base from consumers to institutional investors where Neutrino’s eight employees had therefore planned the move to Coinbase’s office in London as part of the acquisition. 

After Closing $300M Round, Coinbase Is Now Valued At $8B 

Investors see money in crypto even in the bear market as the crypto exchange Coinbase says it is valued at over $8 billion after closing a new $ 300 million round of funding accelerating the adoption of cryptocurrencies and digital assets. 

Led by Tiger Global the US company said the Series E investment comes with participation from Y Combinator’s Continuity Fund and Wellington Management which is a $1 trillion fund recently got into crypto alongside Andreessen Horowitz and the Polychain among others. 

Taking up the deal the Coinbase had $525 million from investors to date as the valuation represents a huge jump on $ 1.6 billion which was deemed to be worth it when it previously raised what was $ 100 million. 
Making a big push the company has broadened the services from consumers to catering to institutional investors with plans to use the new capital to continue that strategy. 

Additionally, the firm plans to broaden the focus outside of the US offering fiat-to-crypto exchange services in other parts of the world as it is in line with other exchanges including Binance. Famous for crypto-to-crypto trading Binance is initially the world’s largest exchange based on trading with plans to open at least 10 fiat-to-crypto exchanges worldwide. 

Concluding The Discussion

Going towards the groundwork supporting thousands of more tokens in the future, the capital will have Coinbase currently allowing trading to just a handful of cryptocurrencies which has long harbored ambitions to expand beyond that. While it was observed by CEO Brian Armstrong that he sees the future in which every cap table has its token whereas based on that he said he believes Coinbase hosts hundreds of tokens within years with even potentially millions in the future.  

Recently introducing a USDC stablecoin Coinbase plans to offer further utility applications like this in the future where the COO AsiffHirji said in the blog post announcing the new funding.