Coinbase Chief Financial Officer Alesia Haas has highlighted the exchange’s position in the crypto market while appearing before the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services.
In her speech before the house, Haas claimed that Coinbase now stores about 12% of the world cryptocurrencies in the denomination of over 150 asset types.
According to Hass, the ability to hold a significant share of global digital assets stems from Coinbase’s ability to allow users to trade and hold various cryptos. Furthermore, the official maintained that Coinbase is acting as a key driver for the current crypto utility phase.
Picks for you
“We now securely store 12% of the world’s crypto across more than 150 asset types<…>We serve more than 73 million customers globally, including 10,000 institutions and 185,000 application developers. Importantly, nearly 50% of our transacting customers are doing something other than buying and selling crypto, which indicates to us that crypto is moving beyond its initial investment phase into the long-expected utility phase,” said Haas.
The need to adopt crypto regulations
During her speech, Haas also warned that the United States needs to adopt crypto regulations or risk losing gains made in the sector. She noted that a lack of an effective regulatory framework could push crypto activity underground or offshore exchanges with few compliance programs.
Haas was part of a delegation of six major cryptocurrency firms that addressed Congress on Wednesday, calling on lawmakers to proceed cautiously when enacting new regulations.
As reported earlier by Finbold, SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci said the testimonial was a positive step.
Coinbase customers demand refund following technical glitch
The executive’s speech before lawmakers come as Coinbases faces scrutiny from customers demanding a refund over their involvement in a stablecoin called GYEN, which is tied to the Japanese yen.
The customers launched an online campaign demanding the exchange refund their losses following a technical hitch that resulted in the platform freezing accounts for weeks, with some users incurring losses.
The mid-November glitch also affected POWR, a cryptocurrency designed to be used in energy trading. Amid the petition, it is still unclear how many customers were affected after the coin suddenly spiked in value before crashing again.
In response, Coinbase, through an email, said that as a result, “all buys, sells, trades, sends, and receives of GYEN and POWR were temporarily disabled on Coinbase.com and Coinbase Pro.
The exchange promised to publish a blog post about the event. Both GYEN and POWR have resumed normal trading on two exchange platforms.
