At Coinbase, our first priority is to ensure that we operate the most secure and compliant digital currency exchange in the world.
I do think some digital currency will end up being the reserve currency of the world. I see a path where that's going to happen.
It's important to understand how Coinbase thinks about regulation and compliance in the digital currency space. As an exchange, we view compliance as key to digital currency's success.
Unlike Bitcoin or email, our financial institutions and payment systems today are proprietary. This limits the ability for consumers to easily switch between payment providers and creates less competition for services.
We need to be held to a higher standard because digital currency is so new and interesting and powerful that it is attractive to a lot of people out there to try to steal it.
Within the coming years, disrupting the Bitcoin network will become increasingly more difficult as Bitcoin wallet software and the protocol become more mature and resilient.
My belief is that the vast majority of people using digital currency today are not seeking to evade taxes. They are simply investors seeking returns and people interested in a nascent new technology.
I think it's going to end up a lot like the Internet. Some countries try to regulate the Internet - bitcoin will be very much like that. It will be legal, and there will be some countries with currency control.
If you're someone in the business of verifying transactions on a proprietary network, the invention of Bitcoin cannot be safely ignored. It will change or disrupt the providers of most proprietary payment networks in the coming years.
By lowering the barrier to create new digital currency applications, we'll see an explosion in the number of ideas tried. We'll invest in, partner with, or build a number of new applications in this space, including replacements for many of the services people use in finance 1.0.
It's really hard to argue that bitcoin doesn't have many legitimate benefits to companies that are legal businesses when you have Dell and Expedia and all these companies now accepting it.
The average person may, at a high level, think of us as a digital currency bank, but we're not a bank.
If there is one positive takeaway from the collapse of Mt.Gox, it is the willingness of a new generation of Bitcoin companies to work together to ensure the future of Bitcoin and the security of customer funds.
At Coinbase, our mission is to create an open financial system for the world. We believe that open protocols for money will create more innovation, economic freedom, and equality of opportunity in the world, just like the Internet did for publishing information.
For a major publisher like Time Inc. to embrace Bitcoin sends an important message to both its readers and to the broader media community.
