As regulators around the world increase their scrutiny of the crypto sector, the venture says the new position reflects its “commitment to compliance, as well as its recognition that companies require seasoned teams to deal with regulatory requirements in different countries”.
“As Coinbase – along with the cryptocurrency space as a whole – grows and matures, continued regulatory compliance across all the varying jurisdictions globally will be critical,” Asiff Hirji, Coinbase President and Chief Operating Officer, said in a blog post.
He added: “From our earliest days as a company, Coinbase committed itself to being the world’s most trusted and easiest to use cryptocurrency service. Adding Jeff to our team is one more important step along this journey. His experience, vision and judgement will be incredibly valuable as we continue to expand into new markets, and add new services such as Coinbase Custody and our recently announced acquisition of a licensed broker-dealer.”
New assets
Earlier this month, Coin Rivet reported that Coinbase was considering adding five new assets to its platform. These include Cardano (ADA), a platform that runs the blockchain for the Ada cryptocurrency; Basic Attention Token (BAT), the internal token of the Brave browser; Stellar Lumens (XLM), an open source protocol for value exchange; cryptocurrency Zcash (ZEC); and 0x (ZRX), an open protocol that allows ERC20 tokens to be traded on the Ethereum blockchain.
Coinbase will be working with local banks and regulators to add the assets in as many jurisdictions as possible. However, unlike the ongoing process of adding Ethereum Classic, these will require additional exploratory work and there is no guarantee they will be listed for trading.
The listing process may result in some being listed solely for customers to buy and sell, without the ability to send or receive using a local wallet. Coinbase may also only enable certain ways to interact with the assets through its site, such as supporting only deposits and withdrawals from transparent Zcash addresses.
“Going forward, you should expect that we will make similar announcements about exploring the addition of multiple assets,” Coinbase commented. “Some of these assets may become available everywhere, while others may only be supported in specific jurisdictions.”
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