Brian Armstrong – the CEO of Coinbase – has issued a statement on the current position of bitcoin and crypto in general that’s got quite a few people worried. He said that he cannot predict what’s going to happen in the coming future, and he has also warned that virtually anything could happen. So, what does that mean?
Coinbase Has Been Moving Up and Down
The state of the crypto market isn’t doing well as of late. Despite a recent bull run in the later weeks of August, it appears bitcoin is struggling to maintain, yet again, a position in the low $20K range, which means the asset has lost more than 60 percent from its November 2021 all-time high ($68,000). In addition, the entire space has lost close to $2 trillion in overall valuation.
Several other digital currencies like Ethereum are also following in bitcoin’s footsteps, and the Coinbase executive is concerned about what could potentially occur in about 12 months. In an interview, he mentioned the following:
I can’t tell you what the world’s going to be like a year from now. I do think there’s going to be margin compression. Eventually, it has to happen at some point because everything that we’re building, you know, others, eventually you’re going to build it and it’ll become a little bit more commoditized.
Coinbase is one of several companies that has been through the mill in recent months. The firm initially decided that 2022 – thinking the bull run of 2021 would continue – would be the year in which staff would grow by more than three times what it was during the previous 12-month period. However, things took a nasty turn when bitcoin began tumbling like it never has before.
Clearly acknowledging that the bears had taken over, Coinbase had no choice but to put a hiring freeze in place. This was eventually followed by a full round of layoffs, in which the exchange lost more than 18 percent of its staff.
Could Things Remain Positive?
With Coinbase so tied to bitcoin the way it is, the exchange has suffered heavily and is working hard to ensure it stays on its feet, which Armstrong is confident that the company could do. Despite his initial words of gloom and doom, he remains mostly positive about the future and commented that Coinbase has been stuck in worse ruts in the past. He said:
We have this saying internally, I like to repeat a lot, which is you know, it’s never as good as it seems, it’s never as bad as it seems. I think one of the reasons Coinbase has been so successful in the last ten years is we just try not to get focused on short-term ups and downs.
Coinbase is arguably the largest and most popular digital currency exchange in the western hemisphere.
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