AMA with Marcus Hughes, Managing Director Europe, at Coinbase

Hi everyone,

In April, we saw the biggest IPO of 2021 so far with crypto-exchange Coinbase going public and hitting a valuation of over $80bn on its first day.

We’re very excited to be chatting to Coinbase in our next community AMA.

Next Tuesday 25th May, our Senior Analyst @DanLane will be interviewing Marcus Hughes, Managing Director, Europe and General Counsel, International at Coinbase.

Coinbase was one of the most popular buys on Freetrade in April and we’re expecting a lot of questions, so be sure to get yours in early.

In the meantime, check out our Analyst David Kimberley’s rundown on Coinbase shortly before its direct listing.

Drop your questions for Marcus on the thread below by end of day Friday 21st May and we’ll line up as many of them as we can for the video recording of the interview the next day.

We’ll share the video later next week!


UPDATE: Thanks for all your questions!

Here’s Dan exclusive interview with Marcus for you to watch now:

This should not be read as personal investment advice and individual investors should make their own decisions or seek independent advice. When you invest, your capital is at risk.

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When are you going to relist XRP?

We’ve seen a significant amount of interest from, and investment by institutional capital in the cryptocurrency space over the last 12-18 months (SBI’s purchase of C2B2 is a stand out for me) which points towards an overall shift in sentiment towards the asset class, however, there seems to be much uncertainty, particularly from a reg risk standpoint.

What risks to the success of the asset class do you foresee and what do you think can be done to mitigate them?

And as a follow up how are you thinking about these risks vis-a-vis Coinbase?

Is there a tie up on the cards between coinbase and Freetrade as they look to expand into crypto this year?

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  • How is coinbase going to play the rise of decentralized exchanges?
  • When direct withdrawals/deposits to/from layer 2s / sidechains (e.g. polygon)?
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How does the institutional interest in Europe compare to the US/Asia, where we have seen large companies put Bitcoin on their balance sheet?

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What do you forecast in terms of adoption of crypto in actual beneficial use cases, as opposed to mainly speculative stores of value?

And how will Coinbase be involved in the more use cases aspects of crypto as opposed to just facilitating exchange, if at all? I am comparing to companies like Silvergate Capital which provide more of the crypto commerce infrastructure as opposed to just mainly buying and selling crypto.

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What’s next for Coinbase?

Are there plans to move greater into the banking space, I know they have been trialling the Coinbase debit card for some time now in the UK but what’s the overall plan in this regard?

I have a very speculative amount in Shiba Inu via Cryto.com, are there plans to list this on the Coinbase exchange?

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How do you plan to diversify away from a predominantly trading fee based revenue model? What other lines of business / products are you planning to roll out?

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Hi, what are Coinbase doing so that Uk customer don’t get caught out by capital gains taxes? Are there any plans that this can be calculated automatically on your platform and paid when making any withdrawals.

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What does the future hold for Coinbase revenue generating capabilities, since 96% of its revenue / profit comes from platform fees? In other words, how is your projection for future growth now with crypto going mainstream with the potential of MANY competitors with lower / no fees?

I’ve lost 44% of the value of my Coinbase shares since I bought them. When do you see stock values going back up again?

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Will you be adding any of the smaller alt coins which are currently making massive news such as Doge or Safemoon!
Many thanks.

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When will a coinbase launch a payment card?

Will coinbase revenues rise if crypto crashes due to the increase trading volume or would a dip be bad for coinbase?

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Markets go up and down but building customer numbers is part of success.

Can you tell us about the challenges and solutions you are adopting in Europe to on board new customers quickly and efficiently while meeting KYC and AML requirements please?

It is recognised that the crypto space has shown extreme volatility at times and during these short periods of high percentage swings it can be frustrating if the trading platform is suddenly unavailable. What are you doing to build a system that can cope with these spikes in user activities so that it’s possible to guarantee availability at all times (the crypto world never sleeps). More subscribers would be drawn to Coinbase with this knowledge, especially during a Bitcoin bull run peak where every second counts.

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Hello guys, will you list Dogecoin into the Coinbase platform?

I have a very small portfolio, it takes a lot for me to be able to invest on either of your platforms.

Do you have any plans to make it easier or cheaper for individuals who cannot afford so much to start making tracks in the investment world?

Examples of this, on Coinbase the fee for a transaction is scaled by value of the transaction, but the higher end of transaction value seems to have a capped fee, so a small trader such as myself will spend £10 on 5-10 transactions where as someone making large transactions would incur the same fee on 2 much larger transactions.
On FreeTrade, stocks and shares ISAs cost £3 per month, which would be 30% of my available investment for the platform.

TLDR: I’m poor and the cost of some actions on both platforms mean I can’t invest as much as I would like due to inherent costs, are there plans to enable people in my situation the ability to grow a bigger and better portfolios or other investment opportunities or is this a situation that until my portfolio grows enough I will just have to make very slow progress ?

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