Outside of the Super Bowl, which many called "the Crypto Bowl" due to the record number of ads aired by crypto firms, the year has been marked by a succession of bad news for the emerging crypto industry.
The digital currency market has lost over $1 trillion in value since hitting an all-time high of over $3 trillion in November, according to data firm CoinGecko. Bitcoin and ethereum, the top two cryptocurrencies by market value, have crashed.
The price of bitcoin is down 42.1% from its high of $69,044.77 reached on November 10. It is now trading around $39,949 at the time of writing.
Ethereum for its part fell by 41.8% compared to the historic threshold of $4,878.26 crossed at the beginning of November. Its price is currently fluctuating at $2,838.26.
The cryptocurrency market is affected by the aversion for risky assets due in particular to the alarmist data on inflation which raises fears of an aggressive rate hike by the Federal Reserve.
In addition, a possible tightening of the regulation is becoming clearer. The White House is expected to announce its approach to the industry soon, according to news reports.
Faced with this cascade of bad news, one would expect the main players in the sector to be cautious as there are still plenty of certainties.
Coinbase Is Hiring 2,000 People in 2022
Coinbase (COIN) , the only crypto exchange where you can buy and sell bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, seems to ignore all these lights that have turned orange or even red.
The firm has just announced that it will be hiring massively this year.
"In 2022, we plan to add up to 2,000 employees across our Product, Engineering, and Design teams," L.J. Brock, Chief People Officer, wrote in a blog post. "We see enormous product opportunities ahead for the future of Web3. We believe our industry is in its infancy and that building onramps for individuals to participate is critical to driving the next generation use case of crypto."
Brock added that: "We are unwavering in our focus to build for the long-term, through every crypto cycle. It’s been one of the greatest drivers of our success to date. Through the highs, we get to focus on scaling and many new people get introduced to crypto. During the lows, we get to focus on product innovation. Whether the market is up or down, we see a clear opportunity, making Coinbase one of the most exciting places to work right now."
This would amount to almost doubling the workforce. Coinbase claims to currently employ just over 2,700 people.
Coinbase does not see itself only as a platform where we buy and sell cryptocurrencies. the firm is in the process of diversifying and wants to become both an exchange (which it already is), an eBay by becoming a place where NFTs (non fungible-tokens) are exchanged, and a supplier of various financial services such as cross-border money transfers such as Western Union.
Coinbase's Market Cap Shrunk by $38 Billion
On this last point, Coinbase has just launched a pilot experiment for Mexico. For the past few days, the firm has been offering immigrants and expats the chance to send money to their families and friends for free until March 31. But then Coinbase intends to charge transaction fees and hopes to deploy this service in other countries.
The financial markets share neither the optimism nor the desire to focus on the long term displayed by the firm. The stock has lost more than 41% of its value compared to its IPO price of $310 posted last April. It evolves at the time we wrote around $182. Market capitalization has fallen by nearly $38 billion in just ten months.
Coinbase does not budge: "Crypto is at a critical juncture — public adoption is at an all-time high, crypto companies are more visible than ever before, and the explosion of Web3 applications is uncovering new possibilities every day," Brock said.
While the concept is still obscure, web3 is a decentralized internet built on the blockchain — unlike the current version (web2), it has the potential to have "shares" that are owned by users in the form of cryptocurrency tokens.
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