The versatile Bitcoin exchange and wallet services provider, Coinbase has been in the limelight consistently from August last year after IRS issued summons to reveal the details of its customer base. While the firm is fighting off the summons, it has put in good efforts to re-affirms the customers’ confidence in the company. The successive campaigns have become successful as the company recently hit the landmark of 6 million customers. In an attempt to woo and capture institutional investors, the wallet company cum exchange has introduced Margin feature. Let’s dive deep into how Coinbase has progressed after the law suit and what they have in store for the ever changing Bitcoin ecosystem:
Coinbase-IRS Lawsuit:
After a recent investigation, IRS has revealed that only a small number of people are declaring their bitcoin profits or losses in their yearly tax returns. The investigation followed after Coinbase decided to fight the summons issued by IRS through lawsuit in attempt to conserve the privacy of its customers. The first ever Bitcoin company with a Billion dollar valuation provides its services primarily in US and in other parts of the world and is committed to protect the identity of the customers. Coinbase said:
We will continue to work with the IRS to assess the government’s willingness to fundamentally reconsider the focus and scope of the summons. If it does not, we anticipate filing opposition papers in court in coming months.
Coinbase doesn’t support listing Bitcoin Unlimited:
Recently a group of 20 exchanges signed a statement that they would be listing ‘Bitcoin Unlimited’ as another cryptocurrency in case of a hard fork. However, Coinbase’s CEO Brian Armstrong publicly agreed that he didn’t support the statement. He believes that listing any currency as BTC regardless of longest chain and presumably other factors of price and transactions is not healthy for Bitcoin development. The hard fork seems inevitable with Bitcoin Unlimited having 40% network share which might occasionally hit 50% owing to the network variance.
Launch of Margin Trading Feature:
Coinbase’s GDAX digital asset exchange has included margin trading feature in an attempt to capture the market that comprises of institutional investors. From March 20th, eligible customers can trade with up to three times leverage in markets for Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin. The increasing interest of institutional investors in cryptocurrencies has prompted the exchange to introduce the feature. However the feature is only available for selected investors/traders. With this launch, GDAX becomes the second US-based exchange to offered leveraged trading services for cryptocurrencies after Kraken.
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