Will Coinbase Gain the Public’s Trust Again?

If you’ve come into the conversation late, you might have noticed the trending hashtag #DeleteCoinbase over the past week on Twitter and wondered what propagated such a strong reaction from the crypto community.

According to a press release from the Neutrino site, “Over the past 3 years, we’ve created one of the best platforms available for the analysis, investigation and identification of illegal cryptocurrency transactions on different blockchains and within smart contracts,” however, some of the founders of Neutrino were past employees of Hacking Team, an Italian surveillance company that has been caught several times selling spyware to governments of Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and Sudan, that allegedly ignore the basic human rights of their citizens.

When Coinbase acquired Neutrino, they were not expecting the backlash from the crypto community. Days later, Brian Armstrong, CEO and co-founder of Coinbase made a statement that “(Coinbase) had a gap in our diligence process. While we looked hard at the technology and security of the Neutrino product, we did not properly evaluate everything from the perspective of our mission and values as a crypto company.”

To add salt to an open wound, in an interview on Cheddar where she was asked why Neutrino was acquired in the first place, Christine Sandler, Director of Institutional Sales at Coinbase stated that “It was important for us to migrate away from our current provider. Our current provider was actually selling client data to outside sources…”

Following his statement he continued to stated that Coinbase and the Neutrino team have come to an agreement that despite having no current affiliation with Hacking Team, those individuals who were previously employed there would be transitioned out of Coinbase.

The questionable acquisitions and the reasons behind their decisions does not help them save face or increase consumer confidence. Moving forward, Coinbase really needs to walk a tight line under the intense scrutiny before they gain the public’s trust again.