Coinbase’s institutional sales director for the American cryptocurrency exchange Kristin Sandler revealed some details of her acquisition by startup company Neutrino, which provides tools for analyzing transactions in the blockchain , which has been protested by a number of users united in #DeleteCoinbase.
According to Sandler, Neutrino Coinbase decided to use the services after one of its partners violated the requirements of the exchange policies in the field of work with data.
“It was important for us to get away from our current suppliers, ” she said in a conversation with the portal Cheddar.
They sold customer data to external sources, which is why we were forced to take control of the situation and get at our disposal technology that we could use to ensure data security and protect our customers. ”
The relationship between Coinbase and Neutrino has displeased users after it turned out that among the employees of the startup are former members of the organization Hacking Team, known for selling spyware to authoritarian regimes and has received the nickname for it “Internet enemy”.
“We know the story of some guys working for Neutrino, and we are exploring this issue, ” Sandler added.
The reason that prompted us to acquire Neutrino is that their technology is the best of its kind. ”
As noted by the portal Messari, citing sources with knowledge of the situation, Coinbase had few options to choose from, since almost all regulated cryptocurrency exchanges are forced to use the services of several large analytical firms, such as Elliptic and Chainalysis.
The source said that recently such firms are building data exchange with exchanges on mutually beneficial terms, that is, Coinbase could get access to its services only if it agreed to transfer its own data.
Coinbase decided to implement the necessary tools in its infrastructure in order to no longer resort to the help of third-party companies, the source said, adding that thanks to Neutrino solutions, the American exchange will be able to fully ensure the privacy of its users.
If the announcement of the acquisition of Neutrino was the cause of a stock exchange boycott by a number of users, then an attempt to explain this decision found even less support in the community. So, Seattle’s bitcoin mitap reported that it would no longer use Coinbase to demonstrate the process of buying, selling, sending and receiving bitcoin .
1/3 We've used @Coinbase at meetups to get Bitcoin. This despite the meetup organizing personal relationship. For newcomers; so we want to know what most newbies recognize.
– Seattle Bitcoin Meetup (@bitcoin_meetup) March 3, 2019
“Coinbase is the most popular tool for newbies in the US, but with the recent acquisition of Neutrino and the unexpected announcement of the sale of customer data, everything has gone too far,” the organization writes, adding that in future it will use the Gemini exchange for presentations.
“If Chainalysis sells data, this is a serious problem for the privacy / security of users of almost all the exchanges and some wallets ,” said developer Matt Odell.
“Regarding #DeleteCoinbase: if you are trying to use different data on Twitter and in real life, it’s better not to write about deleting your Coinbase account right away. Coinbase has just hired those who helped send people to jail with this information. If you are uploading a screenshot, make sure you delete all the identification information. This is much more difficult than it might seem. If in doubt, it’s better not to lay out anything at all , ”said developer Udi Wertheimer.
Sandler, in a conversation with Cheddar, touched on another topic that has been the subject of discussion during the last week – the addition of XRP to Coinbase.
According to her, even if the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) decides to recognize XRP as a security, Coinbase will be ready for this thanks to the recent acquisition of the broker-dealer company Keystone, which gives it the right to work with such tools.
“Adding this asset to our platform aroused a lot of interest, ” she explained.
There is talk of whether he can be recognized as a security or not, but we are not lawyers in the field of securities. We decided that convincing arguments could be found in favor of each of the versions. ”
Publication date 04/03/2019
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