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Brian Armstrong

NFT: Coinbase CEO Is Set To Launch Collection Of Electronic Music Non-fungible Tokens

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The NFT realm is blessed with the embrace of institutions and high-profile celebrities alike which has helped the sector to steal the spotlight this bull season. In the latest development. Brian Armstrong, the CEO of the soon-to-be public crypto exchange Coinbase, is all set to release a collection of electronic music non-fungible tokens or NFTs that he created with DJ David Khanjian over the next few days.

According to his latest Twitter thread, Armstrong revealed that creating the songs as a “fun way” to learn digital audio workstation, Ableton Live. He went on to add,

“I listened to a lot of electronic music with no vocals as I was coding up the early versions of Coinbase, and always enjoyed David’s music. (no vocals because I couldn’t concentrate with other words in my head). Last year during COVID I decided I wanted to learn a little bit of electronic music composition as a hobby, and David was kind enough to take me under his wing and give me some free music lessons.”

The Coinbase exec also noted that all proceeds from the sale of the NFTs will be directed to David Khanjian. The three songs created by the CEO and the DJ will be released over the coming days as NFTs on Zora, the platform behind an Ethereum-based marketplace for tokenized product drops.

NFTs are surely having the moment

The latest development comes a little less than a week after two employees of the crypto exchange reportedly exchanged vows on the Ethereum blockchain. Peter Kacherginsky and Rebecca Rose, exchanged NFT rings with their wedding vows.

More Recently, American lifestyle brand Playboy announced teaming up with Winklevoss-owned NFT marketplace Nifty Gateway, to launch digital collectibles in the form of non-fungible tokens.

The space of non-fungible tokens have seek massive inflow of capital over the past few months. According to Dapp Radar’s February 2021 Industry Report, the sector has reached all-time high sales with the top three NFT marketplaces registering a combined trading volume of $342 million in February alone.

Brian Armstrong Reveals that Coinbase Will Keep Politics Out of its Doors as Dorsey Claims BTC is Direct Example of Activism

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Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market has always been considered as the mavericks of the financial world, with money gurus claiming that it was just a distraction towards mainstream assets. This negative sentiment, however, did not stop the industry from beating expectations and creating a place for itself in today’s world.

The cryptocurrency world was rocked recently by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong’s company’s new policies on political involvement and discussion.  Armstrong clarified that Coinbase will be focussed on building great products for the cryptocurrency space but will not delve into ongoing politics or “assume negative intent”.

Brian Armstrong’s statements were lauded by a lot of members of the cryptocurrency space with some even going as far as saying that he was the ‘Michael Jordan’ of the cryptocurrency space. In the latest Coinbase blog, Armstrong stated that he wanted the cryptocurrency exchange and its employees to be laser focussed on achieving its goals without commenting on the searing political issues ongoing in America.

The Coinbase CEO’s thoughts were challenged by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey who said that a cryptocurrency company should do its part in challenging the community, just like how Bitcoin challenges the financial system. Dorsey’s tweet read:

Jack’s views clashed with those of Armstrong’s, who reiterated on the fact that Coinbase would be a company first. This would be achieved by putting the company’s goals ahead of any particular team or individual goals. The Coinbase CEO was frank in mentioning that the company was going to emulate a ‘championship team’ model, where underperforming members will be replaced by others.

In the latest blog, Armstrong also underlined Coinbase’s key areas of focus: building great products, sourcing amazing talents, and creating fair talent practices. The company officials believed that keeping politics out of the company would enable everyone to feel like they were part of a single team.  This did not stop Jack Dorsey from stating that companies should consider the real issues faced by people so that their inherent mission becomes more meaningful.

Apple Accused of Being “Hostile and Restrictive” by Coinbase CEO; Epic Games Files Lawsuit

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Cryptocurrencies have faced a lot of restrictions and criticism from big tech-firms over the years. While these digital assets continue on their pursuit to innovate payments and transactions, its new direction hasn’t always taken flight with other major corporations.

Now, one of the major organizations that have been rigid towards certain innovations over the years has been Apple, and in a recent conversation, the entities’ “rules” were under the spotlight.

In response to this thread on Twitter, Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase also raised his voice and suggested that Apple hasn’t been very cordial about cryptocurrency transactions as well. according to Armstrong, Apple has been very “restrictive and hostile” towards digital assets over the years as the CEO suggested that the company has been repetitively blocking some of the major crypto functions.

He added,

“They’re still blocking some functionality right now, including the ability to earn money with cryptocurrency by completing tasks, and unrestricted dApp browsers.”

Armstrong was probably talking about the Coinbase Earn exchange, an initiative that allows its users to earn cryptocurrency like Bitcoin by learning about it. Coinbase also cited its reasons back in December 2019 that it had to comply with the AppStore rule and hence removed the functionality of the dApp browser from their application.

Back then, Armstrong suggested that the decentralized form of innovation was an important move in the world of finance and a majority of early adopters had millions of dollars worth of crypto tied to these financial applications.

Apple’s long-legal problems with other organization

For Apple, their restrictions currently go far beyond in-app functionality. A week earlier, Epic Games filed a legal suit against Apple Inc. for allegedly monopolizing third-party payments markets and making innovations such as BTC payments impossible.

According to the lawsuit, Apple had imposed “an oppressive” 30% sales tax on application sales with the game and also made third-party payments redundant.

Epic Games had put forward a request in front of the U.S District Court of Northern District California to force Apple to not act in an an-competitive manner and let go of their hold over the in-app payments system.

Coinbase Becomes First US Crypto Exchange Enabling Google Pay 

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The latest announcement reports that the US’s largest crypto exchange Coinbase is now enabling users to spend Bitcoin using Google Pay via their mobile phones.

Coinbase customers’ s visa debit card, the “Coinbase Card” is now enabled with Google Pay. Coinbase customers can easily link their Coinbase cards to their Google Pay wallet, which will enable them to spend Bitcoins quickly in shops. Following the announcement, Coinbase co-founder and CEO, Brian Armstrong informed his 324.9K followers that they can use “Coinbase card with Google Pay”, adding ‘UK only for now, hopefully coming to other countries soon”.

https://twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/1239976406475370497

Accordingly, the exchange highlights that it can expand the Google Pay support to several other countries in late 2020. The report elaborates it as follows;

“To get started with Coinbase Card, download the Android app today and securely sign in using your Coinbase account. Once a Card has been requested, customers can add their card to Google Pay and start spending their crypto, before the physical Coinbase Card arrives. The Card app is also available for iOS users.“

Essentially, the exchange launched the Coinbase Card back in April 2019 which is available across 14 European countries including; the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Norway, Finland, Republic of Ireland, Italy, Belgium, Slovakia, Croatia, Poland, Czech Republic, Denmark, and Sweden.

With the availability of this physical card, Coinbase customers are free to transact in 10 different digital currencies in shops that currently accept Visa payments. Besides physical cards, users can also access the virtual version of the same card on their phone by linking to Google Pay. In an announcement, the exchange states that the exchange has become the first company “to enable users to make mobile payments powered by their crypto balances”.

As soon as the card is linked to the Google Pay wallet, it emulates the card for offline purchases through the device’s NFC chip. This facility prompts the extra time which, users, otherwise have to spend while using the physical card. Noticeably, the physical card is also accompanied by Coinbase’s application – iOS, as well as Android. And now Google Pay, is an added advantage for android users. It’s worth noting that the App Pay still isn’t supported as the company didn’t confirm the integration yet.