US exchange Coinbase has announced that it has hired Usman Naeem, formerly from Goldman Sachs, to handle crypto derivatives sales.
His role would be Head of Global Derivative Sales and Agency Trading in the London office. Naeem will work alongside Brett Tejpaul, Head of Institutional Coverage, and Coinbase’s Vice President of Institutional Products, Greg Tusar.
Naeem has worked as many as eight years at the US investment bank. In a post on LinkedIn, he wrote:
“I want to thank all my colleagues at Goldman Sachs; it has been a privilege to work alongside such talented and driven individuals from whom I have learnt so much.”
Summary
Coinbase and crypto derivatives
Coinbase currently ranks second after Binance in spot volumes, but without a major presence in the derivatives market. Coinbase had already entered the crypto derivatives sector in early 2022 through the acquisition of the FairX platform, which is regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
However, in the derivatives market, Coinbase will face tough competition from Binance, FTX, OKX, Kucoin, Huobi, and all the other platforms in the top 10-according to CoinMarketCap data-for this type of product.
The latest news on Coinbase
In late September, the exchange had decided to revise its fees in order to factor in better the changes in cryptocurrency trading volumes globally, and the prices of cryptocurrencies facing the so-called Crypto Winter period.
In particular, Coinbase has decided to reduce the monthly trading volume required to qualify as a trader for the middle and upper tiers for hourly fees.
Changes are in fact being made not for transaction levels below $100,000, which remain unchanged, but for those above to incentivize traders with higher volumes.
A few days ago, Coinbase had then experienced problems related to withdrawals and deposits. Even though they were resolved in a relatively short time, the bug had been caused by a technical glitch related only to interactions with US banks, i.e., regarding withdrawals and deposits in US dollars and not other fiat currencies.
Coinbase together with PayPal
By the end of August, payments giant PayPal had joined Coinbase’s Trust network, a project launched last February to protect users’ privacy and security.
The crypto documentary on Amazon Prime
A few days ago, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong then announced that he had been working for three years on a documentary called COIN about the company and crypto.
2/ We gave Greg and his team unprecedented access inside the company, showing the crazy ups and downs of building a tech startup all the way to us becoming a public company. He shows it all – the good, bad, and ugly.
— Brian Armstrong 🛡️ (@brian_armstrong) October 4, 2022
This documentary will be released on Amazon Prime/iTunes/YouTube tomorrow, 7 October 2022. It is being directed by Emmy Award winner Greg Kohs.
Trailer here:
1/ Big announcement: we've been working with director Greg Kohs on a documentary about cryptocurrency and Coinbase over the last three years, and it will be coming out this Friday on Amazon Prime/iTunes/YouTube etc.
See the trailer here: https://t.co/JNAc2pjJPf
— Brian Armstrong 🛡️ (@brian_armstrong) October 4, 2022
Credit image given by PiggyBank
