Brian Armstrong took to Medium to elaborate upon the Coinbase mission. The 100 person company, Armstrong notes, had grown too large for them to communicate daily with all of their employees, and therefore “we decided to craft a clear vision, mission and strategy for the company.”
While he describes the process to determine the vision, the mission and the strategy of Coinbase, Armstrong imparts the company culture “tends to look down on big meetings and ‘fake work.’” During the inquiry, Coinbase highlighted some digital currency fundamentals. Digital currencies would lead to innovation by simplifying payments.
“Payments can be frustratingly slow and expensive at times,” he writes. “Why does it take longer to wire money to Australia than to fly there? Why do U.S. bank transfers take 3 business days and not work on weekends? Why is there a 2–3% tax on almost every retail transaction in our economy (credit cards) when it is just moving bits from one data center to another?” Armstrong cites dependence upon the national market system as a hurdle.
“It’s because each country (and payment company) is running its own proprietary system, and they don’t connect seamlessly with each other,” he states. Bitcoin-like technologies on an open protocol , Armstrong suggests, have the power to transform the world’s finances and economics.
“Among many changes, there would be an order of magnitude increase in the number payments sent per person each day, and the very definition of what a payment is could change (in the same way that more photos are taken since we all carry a high quality camera with us 24/7.),” the CEO writes.
In the Medium post, he discusses the world’s unbanked: “About ⅓ of the world lives on less than $2 per day, but 90% of them don’t have access to a bank account.” This can […]
