Coinbase Global Inc., based in the U.S., is a publicly traded company that has more than eight million users and operates in over 100 countries. Coinbase formally launched in Canada in August 2023, though it has offered services here since 2015. For the past few years, the company has been working with Canadian securities regulators to develop a crypto regulatory framework, and to ensure its platform is compliant with strict rules around investment limits, segregating customer assets, trading on margin, and more.
Coinbase’s ongoing challenges with U.S. regulators
Coinbase’s successful registration in Canada contrasts sharply with its ongoing legal battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the U.S. In July 2022, Coinbase petitioned the commission to propose rules to identify which digital assets are securities, and to govern the regulation of securities offered and traded using digital channels. The SEC has said that existing securities law is sufficient, but Coinbase called it “ill-fitting.” (Catch up on the Coinbase-vs.-SEC timeline.)
The conflict hasn’t halted Coinbase’s expansion—in 2023, it became licensed and/or registered in Bermuda, Spain, France and Singapore and launched in Canada and Brazil.
Coinbase Canada’s CEO, Lucas Matheson, was in Toronto recently as a keynote speaker at the Collision tech conference. Before joining Coinbase in 2022, he was at Shopify for five years, most recently as senior director of operations, and he co-founded Pinshape, a marketplace for 3D-printed products, along with other roles in finance and investing.
We talked to Matheson about what crypto regulation means for investors, Coinbase’s growing presence in Canada, the future of Web3 and more.
Jaclyn Law: In April, Coinbase became a restricted dealer in Canada. What does that mean for the business?
Lucas Matheson: The most important thing is that we have regulatory clarity and that we’re registered. That means we’ve gone through a series of submissions with our regulators to explain: How does our business work? How do our operations work? How do we service our clients, and how do we ensure that conflicts of interest are managed and that our customers are informed?
Interestingly, for me as somebody who’s been in tech for quite some time but never had the chance to work with the government, we’re very much aligned with our regulators, in terms of what we want to accomplish. How we get there is something we’re still working on, but generally, it’s an opportunity for us to collaborate and build strong regulatory frameworks.
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