Is Coinbase Moving Abroad? Firm Begins Talks to Launch Platform Overseas (Report)

Coin­base, America’s largest cryp­to exchange, is report­ed­ly in talks to set up a new dig­i­tal asset trad­ing plat­form over­seas that can offer access to glob­al clients. 

• The dis­cus­sions, which remain con­fi­den­tial, have yet to estab­lish a pre­cise loca­tion for the glob­al mar­ket­place, three peo­ple famil­iar with the mat­ter told Bloomberg.
• How­ev­er, the exchange has already made con­tact with mar­ket mak­ers about how to con­nect to it. 
• “Inter­na­tion­al expan­sion is going to con­tin­ue to be a very core part of how we oper­ate,” said Coin­base Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer Emi­lie Choi dur­ing an earn­ings call last month. 
• The talks occur as reg­u­la­tors forced Sil­i­con Val­ley Bank (SVB) and Sig­na­ture Bank – two of the nation’s biggest cryp­to bank­ing part­ners – to close their doors over the week­end, which some politi­cians are call­ing a delib­er­ate attack on the industry. 
• Coin­base aban­doned Sil­ver­gate – anoth­er fall­en cryp­to bank – for Sig­na­ture ear­li­er this month, though the bank’s recent clo­sure may put it under fur­ther pres­sure. Some data sug­gests that for­mer cryp­to clients of Sil­ver­gate have been retreat­ing to Swiss banks this week. 
• Coin­base has fre­quent­ly remarked on the fast-increas­ing reg­u­la­to­ry hos­til­i­ties in the Unit­ed States, and warned that poor pol­i­cy and enforce­ment around the indus­try may only serve to push it overseas. 
• The exchange cur­rent­ly serves clients in over 100 coun­tries, but all trans­ac­tions are ulti­mate­ly rout­ed through the same U.S. platform.