In what may be seen as a concerning turn of events, another top executive is in the process of leaving Coinbase. Asif Hirji will depart from Coinbase. This may be a pretty big deal. Asif Hirji came in as the President and Chief Operation Officer at Coinbase in December 2017.
Hirji moved from Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital partner of Coinbase, to join Coinbase in 2017. Now, barely two years later, Hiriji is moving on.
Hirji was able to bring a wealth of experience to Coinbase, Hirji served as the President and COO of TD Ameritrade, in key positions at HP Enterprise Services with direct reporting to the CEO of HPE, and was also present at firms such as TPG Capital, Saxo Bank, and Bain Capital.
Hirji certainly added value to Coinbase, after his arrival, Coinbase has “scaled to over $1b in revenue; launched new assets, countries, and products; achieved $8b valuation; and built out team” according to a recent tweet from Hirji.
Why Did Hirji Leave? Is This Cause For Concern?
Maybe his time at Coinbase was always expected to be ephemeral, like a Snapchat message or maybe it was supposed to be a bit longer.
Coinbase has seen other executive departures as well. Yet another high-level departure took place fairly recently with Balaji Srinivasan giving notice to Coinbase. Balaji left Coinbase one month ago, he also served in a role at Andreessen Horowitz.
Even more, people have left Coinbase, people like Dan Romero, head of the firm’s international and institutional business, Adam White, his predecessor, Hunter Merghart, and Christine Sandler.
Top departures are typically a cause for concern. This usually indicates that senior executives do not have faith in the company and its ability to stay competitive. Investors lose faith in public companies such as Tesla when key officials exercise their options and sell their stock, investors also lose confidence in companies when they see continuous departures at a company, indicating serious issues present within the firm, also seen in Tesla.
Yet, at the same time, for Coinbase, these executives may have only been needed to grow the firm for a short period of time, prior to moving on to other activities and ventures.
Is Coinbase Earning Money?
Coinbase earns a significant portion of money when users trade on its platform, the market has been in a bear market for the better part of the year or more since the great crash of the start of 2018. Coinbase may certainly have experienced a significant downturn in revenues.
The exchange might see a resurgence as the bull market is expected to continue. In the meantime, the Coinbase Earn program, and the continuous addition of digital assets should bolster Coinbase and help it endure in times of low trading volume.
