Coinbase appoints Brett Redfearn, former SEC director to oversee capital markets division

Coinbase Global Inc. appointed Brett Redfearn to manage the company’s capital-market division which comprises exchange activities as well as a brokerage and custody company, WSJ first reported.

This news came days after the blockchain company plans to go public, the company recruited a former high-ranking representative from the Stock and Exchange Commission division of trading and markets.

Redfearn, who left the SEC in December, is the second high-ranking former SEC official to join a bitcoin-focused organization this week. Former SEC Commissioner Jay Clayton joined One River Asset Management, a Greenwich, Conn.-based company that began investing in bitcoin in November, as an advisor on Monday.

The largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States was founded by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam in 2012, the company facilitates the trading of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and several other cryptocurrencies in approximately 32 countries.

Headquartered in San Francisco, the digital platform is named after Coinbase transactions, which are special transactions that inject cryptocurrency into circulation in proof of work cryptocurrencies.

Coinbase, which was estimated at $8 billion in its most recent private funding round in 2018, applied for IPO with the SEC in February. It plans to list directly on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange but the listing date is yet to be finalized.

Currently, transaction fees account for about 96 percent of the company's income, implying that its fortunes are tied to the ebbs and flows of an asset class notorious for its unpredictable market fluctuations. Redfearn's main responsibility will be to develop goods and services that will generate a consistent sales stream, the report said.

As the SEC's head of the division of trade and markets, Mr. Redfearn supervised a 250-person team that was actively involved in defining the laws that would regulate cryptocurrencies. This included the commission's regulation of bitcoin exchange-traded funds, digital asset custody, and alternate trading structures, or ATS, which are used for cryptocurrency trading.

Coinbase is trusted by 43 million verified users, 7,000 institutions, and 115,000 ecosystem partners in over 100 countries to easily and securely invest, spend, save, earn, and use cryptocurrency.

Picture Credits: Coinbase