Coinbase – arguably the largest and most powerful digital currency exchange in the western hemisphere – has recently earned a regulatory license to operate in and offer digital currency trading services in Singapore, thus showing that 2022 is leading to a certain degree of expansion.
Coinbase Can Operate in Singapore
Coinbase – like many of the world’s digital currency companies – has had a very rough time this year given that the crypto space is collapsing like it never has before. Bitcoin, for example, is the world’s number one digital currency by market cap, though it has spent the last year traversing the doldrums and experiencing some of its most bearish conditions ever.
The currency was trading at a new all-time high of $68,000 per unit in November of 2021. Now, however, the asset has taken a deep dive in value, having lost more than 70 percent at the time of writing. It is currently trading between $18K and $19K. With the Coinbase stock so heavily tied to BTC, it would make sense that share prices would tank like they have over the past several months.
In addition, the crypto space has lost more than $2 trillion in overall valuation. The entire arena is experiencing heavy problems as of late, which has caused companies like Coinbase to experience even further crashes. The enterprise was forced to cut back on hiring when it announced that it was freezing all employment opportunities earlier in the year.
However, things didn’t quite stop there as the company later announced it was being forced into a position where it was going to have to lay off roughly 18 percent of its staff. What was initially supposed to be a year in which the firm expanded its employee numbers by the thousands turned into a period of solid downgrading, and many people wound up losing their jobs. It was a sad and ugly sight to say the least.
Thus, news like what’s happening with Singapore does bring a small ray of light to an otherwise dark situation. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has announced that it has provided a regulatory license to the digital currency exchange so that Coinbase can provide regulated digital currency products and services to the people of the nation.
In a blog post, Coinbase explained:
Gaining this in-principle approval from MAS is an important step, as we plan to launch our full suite of retail, institutional, and ecosystem products.
Tons of Issues in the Books
On top of all the size and scope problems Coinbase has been facing, it has also been bogged down with legal issues such as a former employee’s brother being found guilty of insider trading.
The company is also the present subject of an investigation brought on by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).