Coinbase’s Neutrino Acquisition for Blockchain Analytics Meets Resistance from Crypto Community

As many of our readers probably already know, Coinbase recently acquired crypto firm ‘Neutrino’, a company that actively develops solutions to monitor, track and analyze the flow of crypto assets across the globe.

Additionally, it is also worth noting that Neutrino makes use of blockchain analytics to help weed out pathways that are associated with money laundering and other similar activities.

According to a statement released by Coinbase, firms such as Neutrino are helping in the creation of a financial system that is not only “open” but also helps new investors to enter this burgeoning domain.

“Blockchain intelligence is increasingly important in the crypto ecosystem, and is necessary to achieve our mission of bringing the open financial system to the world. By analyzing data on public blockchains, Neutrino will help us prevent theft of funds from peoples’ accounts, investigate ransomware attacks, and identify bad actors. It will also help us bring more cryptocurrencies and features to more people while helping ensure compliance with local laws and regulations.”

As per the specifics of the deal, Coinbase has outright bought Neutrino, however, the exact purchase amount has not been made public at this time.

Not only that, Neutrino’s core employee team will now have to relocate from their current office in Italy to Coinbase’s headquarters in London.

A Deeper Look at the Matter

If news stories being circulated by various media outlets are to be believed, Coinbase’s latest acquisition is being labelled “anti-crypto” in more ways than one.

At this point in the marticle, it is also worth adding that Neutrino CEO, Giancarlo Russo, has previously worked as the COO of HackingTeam, a government security contractor whose security protocols were famously breached a few years back.

Documents leaked via the above mentioned hacking scandal showed that the company had “willingly aided repressive governments” who were looking to buy the firm.

In addition to this, even Coinbase’s current business model has not been able to garner the support of long-time members of the global crypto-community.

Despite the complaints levied against Coinbase, the firm is currently estimated to be worth $8 billion— this is after many clients have claimed that the firm’s customer support services and biz. initiatives are massively flawed.

Congrats to Coinbase on the acquisition of chain analysis startup Neutrino!

FYI, the CEO, Giancarlo Russo, was ex-COO of HackingTeam (https://t.co/qyQ6mLU8XE), who sold "offensive intrusion and surveillance capabilities to governments, law enforcement agencies and corporations." pic.twitter.com/VVza5AjIYa

— Arjun Balaji (@arjunblj) February 19, 2019

More on the Deal

As per a recently released statement by Coinbase’s executive brass, a spokesperson for the firm was quoted as saying:

“Neutrino’s technology is the best we’ve encountered in this space, and it will play an important role in legitimizing crypto, making it safer and more accessible for people all over the world.”

In addition to this, Coinbase’s Varun Srinivasan also added that in the future, his company was looking to bring Bitcoin ETF’s to the global market so as to help a multitude of new companies enter this burgeoning space.

Final Take

In closing out this piece, one should bear in mind that it is primarily the SEC’s concerns that are keeping offerings such as Bitcoin ETF’s from entering this market. It now remains to be seen how the future of this industry plays out from here on end.