Coinbase no longer has a central office, and most employees will continue to work remotely after the pandemic.
According to a statement from Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, the company no longer has its official headquarters, which was previously located in San Francisco.
“While we will continue to provide offices for employees who choose to work in them, it is against our culture to designate one location as our headquarters,” said Brian Armstrong, CEO of the exchange. “Moving away from a formal headquarters is more in line with the spirit of the cryptocurrency industry based on the benefits of decentralization.”
In 2019, the company moved to a new office space outside the Ferry Building in San Francisco, which Armstrong previously called Coinbase’s headquarters. Armstrong explained that Coinbase is still heavily US-based and that he does not want to “diminish the legal or regulatory obligations associated with a US-based base.”
The CEO of the exchange claims that nearly 250 of the company’s employees have moved worldwide since January 2020, and more than 150 have left San Francisco. He added that after the end of the coronavirus pandemic, about 95% of employees will still be able to work from home, in the office or in mixed mode, whichever is more convenient for them.
According to Armstrong, 94% of exchange employees believe that remote work has more advantages than disadvantages, or that they balance each other. In particular, employees value autonomy, flexibility, ability to focus and save time on commuting to the office.
The CEO also noted that telecommuting has allowed the exchange to attract more talent. In the first quarter of 2020, only 28% of new hires lived outside of California. In the first quarter of 2021, 58% of new employees of the exchange are foreigners.
Earlier, the Binance exchange also stated that it does not have an official headquarters. In February 2020, the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) announced that the Binance exchange is not regulated by local authorities and is not licensed in Malta. However, the CEO of the exchange, Changpeng Zhao, denied having a headquarters in Malta or anywhere else, claiming that Binance operates “decentralized” in 180 countries around the world.
