Coinbase acquires BRD wallet as it pushes on Web3

Karthik Subramanian

Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the US, has announced the acquisition of BRD wallet which not only includes the wallet and the technology but the acquisition would also include the hiring of the team behind the wallet as well.

The move is seen as a push by Coinbase to further the cause of Web3 and is in line with its mission to put crypto into the pockets of as many users as possible in the coming months. On the other hand, this is a bit of a curious move as well as Coinbase already has its wallet functionality which is used by its customers. It is also likely to have the technology to push further into the wallet base and so this move can only be viewed as something with an eye on the 10 million customers that BRD is reported to have. Coinbase would now have access to this large userbase which will help to further its cause.

“BRD’s unique expertise in self-custody crypto wallets will be invaluable in our goal of enabling more people to safely and securely access the decentralized world of crypto,” a Coinbase spokesperson said.“We’ll be sharing more information in the coming months about how BRD and Wallet teams will unite.”

BRD was one of the first wallet teams to onboard the crypto industry and it started as a wallet in 2014 on which users would be able to store bitcoin, send and receive it as well. Over the years, it has continued to work on the wallet to add many more chains and a large variety of tokens and also tied up with many exchanges to enable swapping between various tokens as well. This has helped it to acquire a lot of users over a long period. The financial details of the acquisition have not been revealed.

This deal would be a huge push ahead for the wallet team and the wallet industry in general as the crypto wallets are the basis for any kind of blockchain network but it has never got its due as all the shine was taken away by much more complex products. But it has to be remembered that it is these wallets that are instrumental in onboarding new mainstream users into the crypto world and there is still a large scope for improvement in them.

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