Coinbase just revealed that it has hired the team from BRD, a crypto wallet startup that debuted its mobile wallet in 2014. While the company transitions to Coinbase, BRD’s co-founders stress that for the time being, nothing will change for BRD users, that their wallets will continue to function properly, and that their “funds are safe and secure.”
- Wallet: The wallet startup was an early player in the mobile crypto wallet industry, starting out as a location for users to store bitcoin but quickly expanding to include a large network of tokens as well as the ability to buy, sell, and swap cryptocurrencies through agreements with exchanges. The startup claims to have a user base of more than ten million people.
- Accessibility: “The team brings deep expertise in self-custody for crypto wallets, which will help Wallet enable more people to safely and securely access the decentralized world of crypto,” a tweet from the Coinbase Wallet Twitter account reads.
- Venture: BRD raised a hefty amount of venture capital funding, banking nearly $55 million in venture funding from firms like SBI Crypto Investment and East Ventures. Coinbase and BRD did not reveal the terms of the acqui-hire.
- Options: Co-founder Adam Traidman and Aaron Voisine note that they plan to build out a “migration path” for users to transfer their wallet contents to the Coinbase Wallet app but that it will be entirely optional for users.
- Crypto world: BRD, which was founded in 2015 and is based in Zurich, adds around one million new users every two months, after taking more than four years to reach that milestone. At the beginning of July, it had 550,000 monthly active users. The COVID-19 pandemic, according to Adam, is to blame for the increased interest in cryptocurrency, particularly among first-time users.
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