By Charlie Conchie
Crypto exchange Coinbase has appointed five new executives to its top team in Europe today as it doubles down on expansion amid one of the “most challenging” periods in the history of the market.
The San-Francisco-based exchange, which in July announced plans to ramp up its expansion across the continent, said it had appointed Elke Karskens to the role of UK country director and Cormac Dinan as director of Ireland, in a spate of senior appointments.
Patrick Elyas, previously director of market expansion at Coinbase for EMEA and Americas, will now shift into a role to focus solely on European expansion, while Michael Schroeder takes over as director of controls for Germany.
The appointments come as the industry reels from the failure of Coinbase-rival FTX which imploded amid a liquidity crisis three weeks ago, sparking fears of contagion and igniting calls for tighter regulatory oversight of the sector.
In a statement today, Coinbase bosses said they believe Europe, the Middle East and Africa were “leading the way in creating a safe and secure regulatory environment for crypto”.
“We consider it a gold standard setter and an example of what can be achieved when the political will is there,” said Nana Murugesan, VP international and business development at Coinbase, and Daniel Seifert, regional vice-president and managing director.
“The importance of this has never been more apparent than in the last few weeks, when the devastating fallout for customers and investors of an offshore, unregulated entity has become clear.”
The two chiefs cited the EU’s MiCA agreement introduced earlier this year; the Financial Services and Markets Bill in the UK, which is set to bring swathes of the market under regulation, and the UAE, which has created the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), an independent regulator for virtual assets.
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