Aussies in the Valley: Coinbase product lead Reuben Bramanathan on why there are no tall poppies in San Francisco

Positioned at the bay end of San Francisco’s massive Market Street thoroughfare and stretching across three floors of one of the tallest buildings in the city, it’s hard to believe two years ago just 50 people worked at Coinbase.

So expansive are the offices of the multi-billion-dollar cryptocurrency exchange I quickly found myself lost in them, loitering awkwardly in a hallway as throngs of startup-types rushed past me, many in bright blue Coinbase shirts, and equally as many in deep conversation about Bitcoin.

The meteoric rise of cryptocurrency caught the world by surprise at the start of 2017, as a rising coin price of almost every major cryptocurrency and token was joined by an insane flurry of development and speculation. Startups popped up seemingly overnight, brandishing a technical whitepaper and a hastily assembled founding team, asking for funding from a community who were more than willing to provide. Projects raised millions in literal seconds through hyperbolic initial coin offerings, with investors and founders alike hoping the project could be the ‘next Bitcoin’.

At the forefront of this development was Coinbase, founded in 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam. The company’s premise is a basic one: to provide a simple way for users to buy and sell leading cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. Read more

Dominic Powell - SmartCompany - 8 November 2018