COINBASE GLOBAL INC.1 - Institute for Global Business Research
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COINBASE GLOBAL INC.1
CASE DESCRIPTION
The primary subject matter of this case concerns the challenges of entering a new market,
establishing a market position and strategizing to defend this position in a highly complex,
competitive, and volatile environment. The case focuses on Coinbase, the first major
cryptocurrency exchange platform to list its shares on a US stock exchange. The Coinbase story
can be used to investigate how the introduction of new ventures into a developing marketplace
can create disruption as existing entities try to respond. It is appropriate for upper-level
undergraduate and graduate students and can be taught in two class hours.
CASE SYNOPSIS
Coinbase Inc went public with a market valuation of $86 billion and in doing so became the first
major cryptocurrency exchange platform to list its shares on a U.S. stock exchange. Among
proponents of cryptocurrencies this was a “watershed” moment since they believed this event
would pave the way for further legitimizing the DeFi (decentralized finance) ecosystem. As
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said, “Coinbase is a foundational piece of the crypto ecosystem and
is a barometer for the growing mainstream adoption of bitcoin and crypto for the coming years
in our opinion.”2
Coinbase’s mission was to “increase economic freedom in the world” by empowering
individuals through greater access to financial services, as of 2021 the company boasted over 68
million verified users, with operations in over 100 countries and approximately $462 billion in
quarterly trades.3 The company was the go-to platform for investors new to crypto-currency,
buying their first bitcoins. Coinbase offered a seamless and easy to use interface and had a
reputation for being a secure platform.
Yet several financial analysts were skeptical of Coinbase’s exuberant growth and claimed that it
would not last in the long run as the industry grew. With the entry of firms offering similar
services, Coinbase’s position as a “customer friendly”, “easy to use platform” stood challenged.
The exchange was now a target for competing exchanges who offered low fees/commission
thereby eating into Coinbase’s market share. The cryptocurrency exchange industry had become
an attractive destination for established players from the existing financial system such as
Robinhood, Cash App, Venmo, Interactive Brokerage, and Square. Brokerage giants such as
Charles Schwab, E-trade and Deutsche Bank were also looking to enter this space.
INTRODUCTION On Wednesday April 14, 2021, Coinbase Global Inc went public with a market valuation of almost $86 billion, becoming the first major cryptocurrency exchange platform to list its shares on a US stock exchange. Among proponents of cryptocurrencies this was a “watershed” moment. Many believed this event could pave the way for further legitimizing the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem. As Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said, “Coinbase is a foundational piece of the crypto ecosystem and is a barometer for the growing mainstream adoption of bitcoin and crypto for the coming years in our opinion.”4 Coinbase began trading at $381 a share, a 52 percent increase over a $250 reference price set by Nasdaq (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations).5 The share price ended the day at $328.28, valuing the company at $85.7 billion, far exceeding the market capitalization of Nasdaq ($32 billion) and ICE (Intercontinental Exchange) ($66 billion) where this stock was traded. It’s important to note that Coinbase skipped the traditional IPO (initial public offering) process and instead opted for a direct listing which allowed employees and existing shareholders to sell shares immediately at a market-based price, thereby avoiding the need for Coinbase to raise additional capital from public market investors.6 Founded in 2012 in San Francisco, Coinbase Global Inc. (Coinbase) was among the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the US that offered brokerage services for buying and selling cryptocurrencies. The company’s initial mission was to “increase economic freedom in the world” by empowering individuals through greater access to financial services. By 2021 the company had attracted over 68 million verified users, with operations in over 100 countries and approximately $462 billion in quarterly trades. As evidence of its appeal, Coinbase had about 8.8 million users who made monthly transactions.7 The company became the go-to platform for investors new to crypto-currency, buying their first bitcoins. Coinbase offered a seamless and easy to use interface and had a reputation for being a secure platform, yet several financial analysts were skeptical of Coinbase’s exuberant growth and claimed that it would not last in the long run as the industry grew. With the entry of firms offering similar services, Coinbase’s position as a “customer friendly”, “easy to use platform” stood challenged.8 The Coinbase exchange was now a target for rival exchanges who offered low fees/commission, thereby eating into Coinbase’s market share by increasing the competitive landscape. (See Exhibit 1.) The cryptocurrency exchange industry had also become an attractive destination for established players from the existing financial system such as Robinhood, Cash App, Venmo, Interactive Brokerage, and Square. Brokerage giants such as Charles Schwab, E-trade and Deutsche Bank were also looking to enter this space.
EXHIBIT 1 Cryptocurrency Exchange Trading Fee Comparison9
Fees Coinbase Robinhood Gemini IKBR Etoro Binance.Us Kraken
The greater of No trading The greater 0.18% No 0.1% 0.26%
Trading flat fee ($1.49, Fees of flat fee trading
$1.99 & $2.99) ($0.99, Fees
Fees
or 1.50% $1.49, $1.99
& $2.99) or
1.49%
Spread 0.50% fiat No 0.50% No 0.75% No No
1.00% crypto
With the posting of 2021 Q2 financial results, Coinbase had registered approximately $2.0
billion in revenues, its best quarter to date, surpassing all expectations.10 However, the company
faced not only growing competition within the cryptocurrency exchange industry, but also rising
numbers of consumer complaints regarding its service. According to a report published in June
2021 by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) based on data from consumer
advocacy group MASSPIRG, Coinbase received 2,182 complaints about difficulties dealing with
virtual currency, specifically regarding problems retrieving money from the service. This was in
addition to the 755 complaints about Coinbase’s digital wallet. In this report, Coinbase was the
third most-complained-about company, behind PayPal (owner of Venmo) and Square (owner of
Cash App). 11 Despite these accusations, Coinbase continued to grow by onboarding new
investors to its platform.
Trading fees formed a majority of Coinbase’s revenues and were dependent on the performance
of its most-traded cryptocurrency assets. In its June 2021 10-Q filing, retail trading fees and
commissions represented about 80 percent of total company revenue. However, the high
volatility of the still developing cryptocurrency landscape threatened to deter investors and
thereby greatly impact Coinbase’s revenues. The company's future was tied to the future of
cryptocurrency, which was very hard to estimate. Unlike competitors that had more diversified
lines of business, Coinbase was solely reliant on the value of the cryptocurrencies it offered for
trade. Coinbase’s stock market performance had been choppy: valued at $68.1 billion shortly
following its direct listing, the value dropped to about $47 billion. As of 2022, Coinbase’s shares
had fallen about $200 from its IPO opening value of $381.00.12
According to research analyst Christian Bolu, Coinbase could lose relevance despite the
cryptocurrency boom due to the intense competition in the cryptocurrency exchange market.
“Coinbase is rapidly losing market share and seeing significant take rate compression — we
expect these trends to accelerate as competition intensifies (Robinhood, FTX & Binance the most
dangerous)”, Bolu said.13 This was a concern because Coinbase relied heavily on “take rate”, the
fees and commissions charged to investors, as its primary revenue stream.
To counter this and maintain an edge over its rivals Coinbase had attempted to innovate with new product offerings. However, this had also invited scrutiny from government regulators and authorities. In early September 2021, the Coinbase cryptocurrency exchange came under the scrutiny of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) when Coinbase proposed its unique service Lend which would have allowed customers to earn interest on their crypto holdings.14 The SEC threatened to sue Coinbase if it went ahead with launching this digital asset lending product: the SEC believed that this was a security product and wanted to litigate it under the securities law. SEC chair Gary Gensler said that products that bear a specific interest-rate return could fall under SEC oversight as securities. This led to Coinbase eventually withdrawing the service. This move was just the latest in the SEC's actions taken against cryptocurrency companies and went to the heart of a key issue facing the SEC and other regulators, which was how to treat this volatile sector. Companies operating cryptocurrency trading platforms had components of both banking and securities. This lack of clarity on regulatory oversight made for an uncertain competitive environment and made it difficult to develop and offer competitive products and services in this growing industry. Competition in the cryptocurrency brokerage space was increasing and coming from two segments: young companies with new business models and traditional brokerage firms. As the industry continued its development, regulation and reporting requirements were increasing and were increasingly uncertain. More competitors looked to go public following the Coinbase offering, further intensifying competition. Several questions faced Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong and his leadership team. Would Coinbase lose its relevance as a first mover with a reputation for service as others followed their lead? Would the pricing of fees and commissions on trading continue to be Coinbase’s competitive basis? What would the regulatory landscape shape up to be and how might that impact innovation, the foundation of Coinbase’s competitive strategy? Would the pressure for growth from investors push the company to think differently about its business? Given this context, the Coinbase leadership found itself in a two-fold predicament – whether to innovate despite frequent scrutiny from regulators that got investors jittery, or to slash prices to compete with rivals in a race to the bottom. BACKGROUND Coinbase was founded in June 2012 by Brian Armstrong, a former AirBnb engineer who was later joined by Fred Ehrsam, a foreign exchange investment banker from Goldman Sachs. Born in San Jose, CA to a family of engineers in January 1983, Armstrong was exposed early on to
technology and entrepreneurial ideas. At a young age he had a goal to “start a billion-dollar company” that could have large scale impact on millions of people across the globe.15 In high school Armstrong developed computer programming skills that he used to build websites for local firms. He earned undergraduate degrees in computer science and economics and a master's in computer science at Rice University. Subsequently he co-founded UniversityTutor.com. This technology-based business connected students to tutors, allowing them to find each other by topic and need. In 2011 after living and working in Argentina, he joined Airbnb where he saw firsthand the difficulties and inefficiencies associated with global payment transactions.16 In 2010 Armstrong had read a publication by Satoshi Nakamoto, an alias promoting bitcoin as an underground currency. Armstrong was fascinated by the idea of a decentralized financial system that allowed people to engage in transactions without the need for intermediaries, but he was more interested in how to keep investments in cryptocurrency safe from loss and theft. This idea came to him after experiencing the difficulty that individuals without a technical background encountered while investing in cryptocurrency and trying to protect their investment. Despite its immense potential, Armstrong had observed that accessing bitcoins was not at all easy for the common man with limited programming skills. In the early days bitcoin transactions were recorded in a virtual blockchain by skilled individuals called node keepers (miners). To confirm transactions, a member had to perform certain arithmetic tasks. On successful completion the “node” that coped with them received several new tokens (BTC reward) in this process called “mining”.17 This was a process only accessible to a few skilled individuals. Armstrong realized that if bitcoins were to become mainstream, the process would need to be more easily accessible. With that goal in mind, he went on to write codes in Ruby and Java Script to buy and store cryptocurrencies. Armstrong’s ambitions were realized when his startup attracted $150,000 from Y Combinator, one of the most influential Silicon Valley accelerators. “I wasn’t really focused on making money. I wanted the world to have a global, open financial system that drove innovation and freedom”, he told Forbes magazine in an interview.18 Fred Ersam, Goldman Sachs foreign exchange banker, also subsequently supported the project. In 2012 with $150,00 in seed funding and Ehrsam joining this endeavor, Coinbase was on its way. The presence of Ehrsam gave credibility to Coinbase, allowing the company to gain the trust of the banks that were needed to complete transactions and to distance itself from the anarchist reputation of the industry.19 From the very onset of the business, Armstrong’s instinct to operate within the system and cooperate with regulators had paid off. The success and growth of the company was evidence of their success. (See Exhibit 2.)
EXHIBIT 2 Coinbase: The Journey So Far20
June 2012 Coinbase was founded.
October 2012 Launched services to buy and sell bitcoins through bank transfers.
May 2013 Received $5 million Series A investments from venture capitalists Union
Square Ventures.
December 2013 Received $25 million Series A investments from venture capitalists Union
Square Ventures.
January 2014 Coinbase Global, Inc. was incorporated in Delaware as a holding company for
Coinbase and its subsidiaries. The company also grew to a million users the
same year.
January 2015 Received $75 million investment, led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, the New
York Stock Exchange, USAA, and several banks.
January 2015 Launched a US based Bitcoin exchange for professional traders called
Coinbase Exchange and later re-branding itself in May 2016 by changing its
name to Global Digital Asset Exchange.
July 2016 Added retail support for Ether.
March 2017 Obtained the license to trade in Ethereum and Litecoin from the New York
State Department of Financial Services.
March 2018 Appointed Emilie Choi, a former LinkedIn executive, as Vice President of
Corporate and Business Development. She was later promoted to the role of
president and chief operating officer in May 2019.
April 2018 Launched an early-stage venture fund, Coinbase Ventures, focusing on
investment into blockchain- and cryptocurrency-related companies.
May 2018 Announced its first investment in Compound Labs, a start-up building
Ethereum smart contracts.
May 2018 GDAX was once again rebranded as Coinbase Pro.
September 2018 Launched a digital coin USD coin pegged to the US dollar, as a part of a
consortium called Center.
Coinbase's non-U.S. revenue grew 20% to €153 million (U.S.$173 million) in
2018 resulting in a net profit of €6.6 million. Non-U.S. operations accounted
April 2019 for nearly one-third of the company's overall revenue at this time.
May 2020 Announced it was becoming "remote-first" and would no longer recognize a
formal headquarters.
February 2021 Confirmed it was "remote-first" and would no longer recognize a formal
headquarters.
April 2021 Went public with a market valuation of $86 billion USD.
June 2021 Added Dogecoin to its tradable assets for Coinbase Pro users.
September 2021 Added Shiba Inu to its tradable assets for all users.
BUSINESS MODEL AND OPERATIONS At its core Coinbase was a cryptocurrency exchange operating similarly to stock exchanges such as NASDAQ and NYSE. Coinbase served as an on-ramp for investors who wanted to trade in cryptocurrencies, just as stock exchanges served as the on-ramp to trade in stocks. The company charged commissions and fees on trades as its major source of revenue. To stabilize and diversify its revenue base, the company began adding products and services to its portfolio of businesses. This included the Coinbase Wallet app for iOS and Android mobile devices that gave the user access to funds stored in the wallet and was fee-based per transaction. The company also ventured into debit cards. The Coinbase Card issued through VISA was a foray into the payment provider space where PayPal competed. The company also offered fee-based custodial services for holding cryptocurrency. This was successful largely due to the strong reputation of Coinbase as a platform safe from fraud and hacking. Known as an industry leader in security of customer deposits, the company stored 98 percent of its customer assets offline around the world. Significant backup was used in both digital and paper format and the same encryption standards used by banks were used for the company’s website.21 Digital currency held online by Coinbase was partially insured against theft from or breaches in security of their system. Cash balances held in custodial accounts in US banks were insured by the FDIC up to a maximum of $250,000.22 Losses resulting from the compromise of individual Coinbase accounts due to the loss or theft of access credentials were not covered. The service also provided iOS and Android supported mobile wallets that could store private keys on users’ devices, so that only they had access to their funds. Additionally, Coinbase also had a website, Coinbase Pro, that catered to experienced investors with its advanced options and relatively lower fees. It was important to note that the Coinbase exchange was a custodial service, i.e., individual investors didn’t have any direct access to the funds stored at Coinbase or the private keys controlling them. Apart from being a brokerage service Coinbase also provided additional services. (See Exhibit 3.)
EXHIBIT 3 Additional Services Provided by Coinbase23
Merchant Solutions Provides online merchants with the facility to accept
cryptocurrencies for transactions through a dedicated plugin.
USD Coin (USDC A Coinbase stablecoin that is pegged to the US dollar
Coinbase Index Tracks the financial performance of all Coinbase listed assets
Custodian services Safeguarding cryptocurrencies for institutional investors
Earn.com A service acquired by Coindesk for filtering out spam emails
Paradex A platform for trading directly from a user’s wallet
Coinbase Ventures Investing in companies that are building the open financial system
INDUSTRY OVERVIEW
Bitcoin’s ever-increasing popularity had caused the crypto exchange industry to grow across the
globe, with start-ups no older than a decade becoming billion-dollar companies. The second
quarter of August 2021 saw Coinbase generate net income of $1.6B, up from from $32M in the
same period in 2020.24 Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world by volume, generated
over $1.8B in trading revenues in the beginning of 2021 by itself. Both Binance and Coinbase
accounted for 12.66 percent and 7.27 percent of crypto exchange revenue in 2019.25
Cryptocurrency exchanges provided access to the market for traditional investors who were
interested in digital currencies, much like stockbroker firms gave access to the trading of stocks
and bonds. Cryptocurrencies were primarily obtained in one of two ways: through mining or
through an exchange. Mining was typically a complicated and expensive process. Because of
this, fiat-crypto asset exchanges and brokerages – like Coinbase, Kraken, and Gemini – had
established themselves as the primary on-ramps to this asset class, targeted at the more novice
consumer. These exchanges allowed consumers to trade fiat (e.g. USD, GBP) for crypto assets
(e.g. BTC, ETH, LTC), but there were quite a few challenges still ahead. Cryptocurrencies were
notorious for their wildly volatile price moves, and skeptics worried that this market was in a
massive bubble and could burst at some point.26 In addition, global regulators were increasingly
trying to bring cryptocurrency trading under their oversight, with certain governments looking to
strictly regulate this form of decentralized finance.
EXHIBIT 4 Biggest Cryptocurrency Exchanges Based on Volume in September 202127 PRODUCT OVERVIEW Cryptocurrencies had emerged as a powerful class of assets challenging traditional financial systems. This decentralized structure facilitated peer-to-peer transactions without the need for a middleman, but the underlying value of the cryptocurrency being traded was highly volatile, subject to major swings. The cryptocurrency market touched $2 trillion USD in mid-August 2021, when Bitcoin values soared to above $48k USD levels, but cryptocurrencies had also been known to lose 40 percent of their value in 24 hours on other days.28 The presence of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase on Nasdaq had encouraged a developing interest in cryptocurrencies and had renewed confidence among institutional investors despite this high volatility. Often described as “digital money”, cryptocurrencies were a form of digital asset or virtual currency driven by the blockchain technology and based on a decentralized network of computers. These computer networks had two main functions: One was to process transactions; the other was to maintain a database that recorded and stored the cryptocurrency’s digital transactions.29 Blockchain was a digital ledger, or a database of transactions distributed across a network of computer systems. This technology was used in many other industries such as healthcare and supply chain logistics. Cryptocurrency transactions were recorded in perpetuity on the blockchain. Each new transaction was recorded on the public ledger, adding them to the “chain” and checking for authenticity. Cryptocurrency transactions were decentralized which meant that they were transacted between peers (peer-to-peer) without processing through a central agency or bank.
"Crypto" referred to various encryption algorithms and cryptographic techniques that protected each transaction, leading back to a unique set of keys. Whoever owned a set of keys owned the amount of cryptocurrency associated with those keys, similar to the owner of a bank account owning the money in the account. Cryptocurrencies were growing in popularity. Equity was built into currency transactions because it allowed any two people from anywhere in the world to make a transaction of any size within minutes with just a stable internet connection. That meant businesses could take advantage of the immediacy of transactions across town or across the world and did not have to be dependent on the various global monetary systems or deal with government instability. Moreover, the blockchain ledger was visible to anyone and the transactions were not reversible, therefore keeping fraudulent transactions at a minimum. Blockchain technology also ensured that counterfeiting and currency manipulation was not happening.30 The cryptocurrency system was open source, relying on individuals or companies for the continuous updating and verifying required to maintain the blockchain ledger of transactions. This occurred when participants were rewarded with newly “minted” cryptocurrency for solving a problem or winning a game. Enticing participation was important to maintaining the system and adding to the base of cryptocurrency supply. The process was called mining and required vast amounts of computing power and energy usage. For those reasons it could be costly for the participants, requiring large companies with vast computing power to keep the system running. This raised a concern for the environmental impact of energy consumption, adding to greenhouse gas emissions. Bitcoin was the first digital currency, registered in 2008.31 On May 22, 2010, Bitcoin was legally transacted as a digital currency token for the first time when a man from Florida, Laszlo Hanyecz, spent 10,000 bitcoins at Papa John’s for two Pizzas.32 The transaction became known as the first official use of Bitcoin as a commercial transaction with an actual company. At the time of transaction, Hanyecz’s 10,000 bitcoins were worth $40 dollars. Those coins would be worth approximately $487 million dollars in 2022. As the popularity of Bitcoin soared, more alternate coins began to make an appearance. While Namecoin and Litecoin were the first alternate coins, or “alt coins” as they are popularly called, it was the emergence of Ethereum (ETH) that brought competition to Bitcoin.33 As of February 2022, there were more than 10,000 different cryptocurrencies, up from 66 in 2013.34 Despite the large number of currencies in the marketplace, there were five currencies with a market cap at $50 billion or higher in February 2022. See Exhibit 5 for a list of these five currencies according to market capitalization and value.35 Tether and U.S. Dollar Coin were Stablecoin that was pegged to the US dollar. All other prices were determined by the cryptocurrency trading market. The global cryptocurrency market size was $1.6 billion USD in 2021 and was projected to reach USD 2.2 billion by 2026, a CAGR of 7.1 percent.36
EXHIBIT 5 Top Five Cryptocurrencies by Market Cap as of February 1, 2022
Cryptocurrency Market Capitalization* Coin Price**
Bitcoin (BTC) $730+ billion $38,000
Ethereum (ETH) $327+ billion $2,700
Tether *** $78+ billion $1
Binance Coin (BNB) $63+ billion $377
U.S. Dollar Coin (USDC)*** $50 billion $1
*As of February 1, 2022 **On February 1. 2022. Prices ***Stablecoin tied to the value of
change continuously with trading the US dollar, therefore the price
valuation at $1.00
Source: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/top-10-cryptocurrencies/, Top 10 Cryptocurrencies In February
2022, February 1,2022, Tretina, Kat and John Schmidt.
INDUSTRY COMPETITION: CRYPTOCURRENCY CENTRALIZED EXCHANGES37
By 2022, globally, there were over 400 cryptocurrency exchanges classified under two
categories: centralized exchanges and decentralized exchanges. A key difference was in how
these exchanges were managed. Centralized exchanges were managed by an organization that
allowed for direct transactions from money to cryptocurrency. Decentralized exchanges were
managed in a distributive system of traders that certified transactions, but might not allow for
direct conversions with money (i.e. dollars). In a decentralized exchange, traders had to find
another trader interested in their cryptocurrency for the exchange and rely on the liquidity of the
currency for pricing, The ease of use, convenience of quick conversion, and security measures
used by the centralized exchanges were some of the reasons why they had become the most
commonly used platforms. According to the Corporate Finance Institute 99 percent of all trades
were on centralized exchanges.38
The industry’s business model was largely fee based. Trading fees were charged per transaction
on both the buying and selling of crypto and varied among exchanges. Some exchanges charged
fess when crypto was moved out of an account. Other services for complex trading and
borrowing were also part of the fee structure for many of the exchanges.
Traders choosing between crypto exchanges took into consideration factors of security,
availability of specific cryptocurrencies, assistance available when learning how to trade, and the
accessibility of the exchange itself, which varied by country and state. See Exhibit 6 for a
comparison of four major competitors in the centralized cryptocurrency exchange market.39EXHIBIT 6 Competitor Comparisons – 2020
Coinbase Binance Gemini Kraken
Security Rating AAA AAA AA AAA
Educational Assistance Strong tools Limited Strong tools Limited
Accessibility Widely Restricted in Globally
accessible in some states in accessible.
the US And the US and in Accessible only
worldwide some countries. in NY and DC in
Binance US is the US.
more widely
accessible.
Available Cryptocurrencies 50+ 50+ 40+ 50+
Fees Flat: < $10 = 0.1% spot Flat: < $10 = Maker
$0.99; > $10 trades; 0.5% $0.99; > $10 (investor) fees
< -25 = $1.49; instant buy/sell < -25 = $1.49; are structured
> $ 24 < $50 = trades > $ 24 < $50 = lower than
$1.99; > $50 $1.99; > $50 Taker (buyer)
< $200 - $2.99 ; < $200 - $2.99 fees. Depending
Percentages for More than $200 on volume
direct deposit; = 1.49% of Maker fees
0.5% buy/sell order range from
trades 0.02% - 0.16%
and Taker fees
from 0.12% -
0.26%
Coinbase, Inc.
Coinbase entered the cryptocurrency exchange industry in 2012 in San Francisco, CA, paving
the way for many exchanges offering similar products and services at competitive prices. The
platform supported more than 50 cryptocurrencies. Coinbase had a higher fee structure, but a
wide array of options for trading. It was generally considered consumer friendly for amateur
users with supportive educational tools. Their platform Coinbase Pro was developed to attract
advanced and sophisticated users. As with many crypto exchanges, Coinbase had been
investigated by regulatory agencies for business practices such as overcharging customers on
trades and concealing customer data. The exchange had long been vying for legitimacy among
regulators and was noted for bringing the industry into the mainstream of banking and investing.
Due to openness regarding regulatory compliance the exchange was widely available across the
US and international markets. Coinbase was top rated for security with 98 percent of customers’
crypto stored offsite.40 They also offered an insurance policy for added security. The exchange
was recently listed on the Nasdaq, further signifying its legitimacy as an investment platform.Binance US41 Binance US was a subsidiary of Binance Inc, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world by trading volume at $7.7 trillion in 2021 and had a user base of almost 29 million. Binance, headquartered in the Cayman Islands, was founded in Hong Kong in 2017. The company had been plagued with regulatory investigations since its inception. In 2019, accusations of money laundering in the US and UK forced the company to open Binance US, a partner to the international exchange, Binance. The Binance US exchange was set up as a separate entity that complied with all applicable US laws. Despite this, Binance US was not available to all US citizens. As of 2021 Binance.US was not permitted to operate in the following states: New York, Connecticut, Texas, Hawaii, Idaho, Vermont, Louisiana. The investment platform supported more than 50 cryptocurrencies, similar to other competing exchanges. The exchange had a competitive fee structure and was known to be friendly to beginning traders with ease-of-use when trading and offered more experienced traders an advanced platform for more sophisticated trades. Binance.US had an AAA security rating on the crypto exchange security review site, CER.42 Kraken43 Founded in 2011, Kraken was among the oldest cryptocurrency exchanges, operating in approximately 200 countries across the world. In the US, they were restricted from operating in New York and Washington state. The investment app supported more than 50 cryptocurrencies, competing with other major exchanges for trading of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others. The fee structure at the beginner level was high compared to other top competitors and their customer support was limited in comparison to Coinbase and others. For sophisticated traders the platform offered a variety of services and its own futures and margin trading platforms. Institutional clients could take advantage of expert insights, one-on-one. Kraken also provided a “dark pool” feature for discreet trading where customers were given an invisible order book in which they could save and see their orders. Orders in the dark pool were not visible to other traders.44 The platform was known for its high level of security and had ranked first with a perfect score on crypto exchange security review site CER. Notably, Kraken had not had any major hacking events in its 10-year history. Although the interface was easy to use, users generally did not find the platform very engaging or intuitive. New investors also complained about the lack of educational information on investing. Users had also raised several concerns in the past about bugs in the UI (user interface) that marred its overall experience. Robinhood45 Robinhood was a traditional financial services company known for pioneering commission-free trades of stocks and exchange-traded funds via a mobile app. It started supporting trading in cryptocurrencies in 2018. Despite its high compliance requirements (investors had to be US
citizens with a social security number), Robinhood had earned immense popularity among crypto investors owing to its $0 commission trading offer which was extended to cryptocurrency investments as well. However, compared to other exchanges, the platform offered limited cryptocurrency assets for investment. Moreover, there was no option for users to either deposit or withdraw bitcoin or altcoins from the app. Gemini46 Gemini was founded in 2015 by the Winklevoss Twins, Tyler and Cameron, who famously sued Mark Zuckerburg for allegedly stealing their idea for Facebook. The exchange was based out of New York. The platform promised high security and an easy-to-use interface for first-time users, although beginners often found the platform complicated. Gemini offered an interactive platform for advanced users called Active Trader. The exchange offered about 40 cryptocurrencies. The fee structure was similar to Coinbase, based on the amount traded: a tiered flat fee up to $200; orders above $200 were charged 1.49 percent. Unlike Coinbase, Gemini did not charge transaction fees for deposits from U.S. bank accounts or wire transfers. For debit card purchases, Gemini charged an additional 3.49 percent of the total purchase amount — a better price than the 3.99 percent Coinbase or 4.5 percent Binance.US charged for debit card purchases. Investment on Gemini utilized multi-layered security measures. The majority of investors’ cryptocurrency was held in an offline, cold storage system — the safest way to protect cryptocurrency from hackers. But a small portion was kept in an online hot wallet that was insured against theft from a security breach, hack, a fraudulent transfer, or employee theft.47 OTHER COMPETITORS – Digital Mobile Wallets48 The cryptocurrency popularity had also seen the likes of popular mobile wallets Cash App and Venmo jumping on the bandwagon. Their users were mostly existing digital mobile wallet app users who wanted to enter the cryptocurrency market. For example, someone with zero knowledge but a few dollars to spare might find an exchange like Gemini confusing but might be willing to buy some Bitcoin through their existing digital wallet account just to experiment as they started to learn. Cash App49 Mobile payment service Cash App, owned by the payment application Square, joined the cryptocurrency space in January 2018 when it expanded its services to support Bitcoin trading. Users were able to buy and sell Bitcoin at the click of a button in this app, but the fees associated with this activity were dynamic and could be unknown until the point at which the user made a trade. One feature of Cash App’s bitcoin integration that was rather rare in terms of the large digital banks is that users were able to deposit and withdraw bitcoin directly from the underlying
Bitcoin network. This meant users could purchase some bitcoin via the Cash App and then take full custody over their crypto assets by withdrawing that bitcoin to their own personal wallet software. Cash App acted as a bank, and in the crypto exchange space, they only supported Bitcoin trading. The platform was generally secure and easy to use although it was not FDIC insured. Generally, fees amounted to 1.75 percent of the value of the transaction, which was high compared to many of the other available options on the market. Venmo50 April 2021 also saw the entry of PayPal-owned mobile wallet service Venmo into this space. Venmo allowed its 70 million active monthly users to invest in four types of cryptocurrencies, namely Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin, for as low as $1. The investment was then stored in their user account within the Venmo app and could be sold at any time. While convenience and an easy-to-use interface was an advantage especially for new investors it did come at a price. Venmo charged high fees both for buying and selling crypto. Users paid about 2.3 percent for transactions under $100 with a $.50 minimum fee. Moreover, crypto investments on Venmo were not FDIC insured and users were not provided with a unique key which made them even more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. One benefit was the ability to use cryptocurrency for purchases through the Venmo app. FINANCIALS51 The Q2 financial results published by Coinbase Inc in August 2021, saw the company surpass expectations with a net revenue of $2.0 billion as opposed to $1.85 billion expected revenue. The period also saw a rise in monthly transacting users to 8.8 million from 6.1 million and total verified users grew to 68 million up from 56 million in the previous quarter. The period also saw trading volumes of $462 billion up from the $335 billion posted in the previous quarter. Moreover, high market volatility during this period helped Coinbase. This was because traders, both retail and institutional, traded a lot when volatility surged which created strong transaction revenue growth for Coinbase.
EXHIBIT 7 Assets on Platform EXHIBIT 8 Trading Volume
EXHIBIT 9 Revenue
EXHIBIT 10 Operating Expenses EXHIBIT 11 Coinbase Stock Price Performance (April 21 – Sep 21, 2021)52
EXHIBIT 12 Consolidated Balance Sheet
EXHIBIT 13 Consolidated Statements of Operations
EXHIBIT 14 Net Income to Adjusted EBITDA
EXHIBIT 15 Consolidated Statement of Cash Flows
EXHIBIT 16 Consolidated Statement of Cash Flows contd.
CHALLENGES
Coinbase was poised to have much stronger earnings than expected in 2021, with profits after six
months already surpassing full-year Earning Per Share estimates.53 Being among the largest
Cryptocurrency exchanges in the market, and the only one to go public, Coinbase had shown
significant growth since its inception and appeared to be well on track on its mission to
revolutionize the cryptocurrency ecosystem, driving this alternate financial system into the
mainstream public consciousness. However, several financial analysts warned that this was a
highly optimistic and inflated view, and, although the company had shown substantial growth, in
the future the company might not be able to justify the $100 billion valuation achieved at its
trading debut. (See Exhibit 17.)
EXHIBIT 17 Coinbase Key Growth Indicators 2014-2021
Year Trading Volume Revenue Profit Users
2014 1 million
2015 2 million
2016 $16 million 5 million
2017 $135 billion $927 million $380 million 13 million
2018 $105 billion $520 million ($55 million) 22 million
2019 $130 billion $483 million ($30 million) 30 million
2020 $195 billion $1.14 billion $322 million 35 million
2021 Q 1 $900 billion $4.03 billion $2.36 billion 56 million
Regardless of Coinbase’s growth, cryptocurrency usage and trading was still at a nascent stage
and had not penetrated the US markets as much as its proponents projected it would. (See
Exhibit 18). According to a report on Statista, while more Americans were becoming aware of
cryptocurrencies in 2021 as compared to 2019, the number of investors had increased by only 2
percent.EXHIBIT 18 Interest and Use of Cryptocurrency in the US 54 The percentage of respondents who said in two surveys in 2021 and 2019 that they had not invested in digital currencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum, and were not going to, had remained the same. While general acceptance and adoption of cryptocurrencies in the US was headed in a positive direction, it was yet to be considered mainstream. Apart from their complete dependence on crypto asset transaction fees for revenue, Coinbase also relied heavily on select cryptocurrency assets. Currently bitcoins and ethers were responsible for a significant portion of Coinbase’s trading volume. It was therefore no surprise that 50 percent of Coinbase’s revenue came from the sale of BTCs and ETHs. This was a risk to trading volumes and revenues should there be a decline in trading volume for these two currencies. In its S-1 filing, Coinbase wrote “There is no assurance that any supported crypto asset will maintain its value or that there will be meaningful levels of trading activities. In the event that the price of crypto assets or the demand for trading crypto assets decline, our business, operating results, and financial condition would be adversely affected. A majority of our net revenue is from transactions in Bitcoin and ethereum. If demand for these crypto assets declines and is not replaced by new demand for crypto assets, our business, operating results, and financial condition could be adversely affected,”55 Add to this the challenge of frequent government intervention. Most legislators still viewed the crypto economy with skepticism and sought to bring it under further regulation which could
deeply impact consumer interest towards cryptocurrency trade. That was why legislative direction was a risk factor for this cryptocurrency ecosystem. Countries might decide to enforce a certain control and oversight on cryptocurrency, to accept it as a legal currency/asset or to declare it illegal in most forms. In September 2021, China’s central bank had declared all cryptocurrency related transactions illegal.56 Up until then China had accounted for 47 percent of all cryptocurrency mining with the United States coming in a distant second at 16.8 percent. In the United States a $1.0 billion infrastructure bill had been approved by the Senate which sought to extend tax reporting requirements to cryptocurrencies as well. From the customer service perspective, a common and frequently quoted issue against Coinbase was its non-responsive customer support. Consumers complained that most responses were met with generic, automated email responses even after several follow-ups. “There is no person in their support team that will talk to you. There’s no name, no identification. It is as if we’re talking to a robot” said Joe Blumetti, a Coinbase user who lost thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency owing to a cyberattack.57 “There’s nobody on the other side,” said Cheryl Hung, a marketing consultant in Los Angeles. Ms. Hung said she and her fiancé, Paul Hwang, started investing in cryptocurrencies in 2019 and picked Coinbase because it was a “big, reputable company” with security. But in January 2021, someone stole $26,000 of cryptocurrencies from their account. Repeated mails to Coinbase were once again met with generic responses and phone calls had no better results. Many people in the community complained that Coinbase wasn’t very support-oriented and that many times reasons for issues weren’t explained to the customer. The absence of a human touch made it difficult for customers to trust the platform. While Coinbase claimed that responses were given by actual representatives and that they had added close to 2,000 employees to customer support teams, customer complaints on various forums such as Reddit and Discord as well on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau database (CFPB) told a different story. The Better Business Bureau rated Coinbase “F” with a failure to respond to hundreds of complaints. According to a report by CFPB, complaints in the virtual currency and money transfer area reached an all-time high as of March 2021, with Coinbase and Robinhood receiving the highest complaints among Fintech companies.58 (See Exhibit 19.) Coinbase was the most complained-about cryptocurrency digital wallet in the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau’s complaint database, according to a study done by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.
EXHIBIT 19 Number of Complaints Against Coinbase & Robinhood 59 Another grievance that advanced crypto investors have often raised is that Coinbase did not always have exciting new and popular currencies. While Coinbase had around 83 tradable crypto assets, these grievances were not unfounded as some popular coins such as Binance (BNB), Landshare (LAND), XRP Ripple (XRP), DeFi (DEFC), Theta Fuel (TFUEL), Monero (XMR), Steem (STEEM) were not available on the platform. This was something the company had acknowledged in its 2021 Q1 report, “Our competitors are supporting certain crypto assets that are experiencing large trading volume and growth in market capitalization that we do not currently support, as well as offering new products and services that we do not offer."60 As it entered a new decade, Coinbase seemed determined to achieve its vision of building an equitable, accessible, and trusted open financial system, revolutionizing the cryptocurrency ecosystem, driving this alternate financial system into the mainstream public consciousness. It remained to be seen whether Coinbase would buckle under the pressure of operating in a heavily complex, competitive, and volatile environment or would emerge as a pioneer within the decentralized finance economy. ENDNOTES 1 This case was solely based on library research and was developed for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation. 2 Source : https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/13/coinbase-reference-price-250-ahead-of-direct-listing.html 3 Source: https://www.coinbase.com/about 4 Source: https://abcnews.go.com/Business/coinbase-set-public-watershed-event- cryptocurrency/story?id=77065101
5 A reference price is set by a stock exchange based on expectations for where the stock will open. 6 Source : https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/13/coinbase-reference-price-250-ahead-of-direct-listing.html 7 Source: https://www.coinbase.com/about 8 Source: https://bitshills.com/best-us-friendly-crypto-exchanges-ranked-by-readers/ 9 Source: https://www.cointracker.io/blog/2019-crypto-exchange-fee-comparison 10 Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/10/coinbase-crushes-q2-expectations-notes-q3-trading-volume-is- trending- lower/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAL6ymDk3 HTUJRSAMOaZjywp3pG5BUetg863lqpzJPuBVg6NYr-HNk-JqYjQl5sn_CD2mA-7jpqFIt9yj532mIVt4Yn5XIOM- K6BSKf8G3TCZPtk_NOspcnUDtt2AuIwN75affcrhwGqulzUQsOQ3pw-ADRiT5oltIpEuGRTb-avt 11 Source: https://masspirg.org/sites/pirg/files/reports/MA_wallets.pdf 12 Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/COIN/history?p=COIN 13 Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/coinbase-risks-losing-relevance-despite-cryptocurrency-boom-analyst- 124747164.html 14 Source: Coinbase drops plans to launch interest product after CEO’s SEC comments - https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/20/coinbase-drops-plans-to-launch-interest-product-as-regulatory-tension- around-stablecoins-runs-high.html’ 15 Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ7aBLq_0oc 16 Source: https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/14/business/brian-armstrong-coinbase-ceo-billionaire/index.html 17 See https://www.investopedia.com/tech/how-does-bitcoin-mining-work/ 18 Source: https://www.forbes.com/profile/brian-armstrong/?sh=da2a4845077c 19 Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Armstrong_(businessman) 20 Source: Coinbase – Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Coinbase 21 Source: https://www.coinbase.com/ 22 Source: https://www.coinbase.com/legal/insurance 23 Source: https://www.coinbase.com/ 24 Source: https://s27.q4cdn.com/397450999/files/doc_financials/2021/q2/Coinbase-Q2'21-Shareholder- Letter.pdf2 25 Soure: https://cointelegraph.com/news/record-600m-bnb-burn-suggests-binance-made-750m-in-profit-in-q1 26 Source: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/rich-poor-dad-robert-saki-market-crash-bitcoin-gold- silver-2021-6 27 Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/864738/leading-cryptocurrency-exchanges-traders/ 28 Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/19/why-is-bitcoin-so-volatile.html 29 Source : https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1385&context=ncjolt, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cryptocurrency.asp, https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-is- cryptocurrency-how-does-it-work-11638386626 30 Double-spending is the risk that a digital currency can be spent twice. It is a potential problem unique to digital currencies because digital information can be reproduced relatively easily. Source : https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/doublespending.asp 31 Source: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bitcoin.asp Note the symbol for Bitcoin is the same as the generic symbol for cryptocurrency, ₿. 32 Source: https://www.yahoo.com/now/bitcoin-pizza-day-sees-first-112000121.html, 33 See a discussion of the differences between Ethereum and Bitcoin at https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/031416/bitcoin-vs-ethereum-driven-different-purposes.asp 34 Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/863917/number-crypto-coins-tokens/, Number of cryptocurrencies worldwide from 2013 to February 2022 35 Source: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/top-10-cryptocurrencies/, Top 10 Cryptocurrencies In February 2022, February 1,2022, Tretina, Kat and John Schmidt. 36 Source: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/cryptocurrency-market-158061641.html 37While there are both centralized and decentralized exchanges that offer crypto currencies, this case is specific to centralized exchanges only. The competition companies mentioned are specific to the North American region.
38 Source: https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/other/cryptocurrency-exchanges/ 39 Source: https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/other/cryptocurrency-exchanges/ 40 Source: https://www.coinbase.com/security 41 Source : https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/binance-us-review/, https://time.com/nextadvisor/investing/cryptocurrency/binance-us-review/ https://www.businessofapps.com/data/binance-statistics/ https://cer.live/ 42 Source: https://cer.live/ 43 Source: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/kraken-review/, https://www.businessinsider.com/personal- finance/kraken-investing-review 44 Dark pools were created in order to facilitate block trading by institutional investors who did not wish to impact the markets with their large orders and obtain adverse prices for their trades. 45 Source: https://coincentral.com/robinhood-crypto-review-how-does-this-exchange-compare/, https://www.investingsimple.com/robinhood-crypto-review/ 46 Source: https://www.nerdwallet.com/reviews/investing/brokers/gemini 47 Source: https://time.com/nextadvisor/investing/cryptocurrency/gemini-review/ 48 Source: https://time.com/nextadvisor/investing/cryptocurrency/should-you-buy-crypto-on-robinhood-venmo- paypal/ 49 Source: https://www.cryptovantage.com/best-crypto-friendly-banks/cash-app-crypto/ 50 Source: https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/heres-why-you-shouldnt-buy-crypto-with-paypal-or-venmo-2021-07- 04 , https://www.inverse.com/innovation/venmo-cryptocurrency-fees-wallet-trading-review 51 https://s27.q4cdn.com/397450999/files/doc_financials/2021/q2/Coinbase-Q2'21-Shareholder-Letter.pdf 52 https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/COIN/history?p=COIN 53 Source: https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/why-coinbase-stock-may-be-very-undervalued 54 https://www.statista.com/statistics/1203934/cryptocurrency-experiences-usa/ 55 Source: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1679788/000162828021003168/coinbaseglobalincs-1.htm 56 Source: https://www.wired.com/story/chinas-sweeping-cryptocurrency-ban-inevitable/, https://www.cnet.com/personal-finance/crypto/chinas-cryptocurrency-ban-what-it-means-for-bitcoin-coinbase- and-the-us/ 57 Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/24/technology/coinbase-bitcoin-complaints.html 58 Source: https://morningconsult.com/2021/04/27/cfpb-database-fintech-complaints/ 59 Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1203934/cryptocurrency-experiences-usa/ 60 Source: https://s27.q4cdn.com/397450999/files/doc_financials/2021/q1/Q1'21-COIN-Shareholder-Letter- FINAL.pdf
COINBASE GLOBAL INC.
INSTUCTORS’ NOTES
CASE DESCRIPTION
The primary subject matter of this case concerns the challenges of entering a new market,
establishing a market position and strategizing to defend this position in a highly complex,
competitive, and volatile environment. The case focuses on Coinbase, the first major
cryptocurrency exchange platform to list its shares on a US stock exchange. The Coinbase story
can be used to investigate how the introduction of new ventures into a developing marketplace
can create disruption as existing entities try to respond. It is appropriate for upper-level
undergraduate and graduate students and can be taught in two class hours.
CASE SYNOPSIS
Coinbase Inc went public with a market valuation of $86 billion and in doing so became the first
major cryptocurrency exchange platform to list its shares on a U.S. stock exchange. Among
proponents of cryptocurrencies this was a “watershed” moment since they believed this event
would pave the way for further legitimizing the DeFi (decentralized finance) ecosystem. As
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said, “Coinbase is a foundational piece of the crypto ecosystem and
is a barometer for the growing mainstream adoption of bitcoin and crypto for the coming years
in our opinion.”1
Coinbase’s mission was to “increase economic freedom in the world” by empowering
individuals through greater access to financial services, as of 2021 the company boasted over 68
million verified users, with operations in over 100 countries and approximately $462 billion in
quarterly trades.2 The company was the go-to platform for investors new to crypto-currency,
buying their first bitcoins. Coinbase offered a seamless and easy to use interface and had a
reputation for being a secure platform.
Yet several financial analysts were skeptical of Coinbase’s exuberant growth and claimed that it
would not last in the long run as the industry grew. With the entry of firms offering similar
services, Coinbase’s position as a “customer friendly”, “easy to use platform” stood challenged.
The exchange was now a target for competing exchanges who offered low fees/commission
thereby eating into Coinbase’s market share. The cryptocurrency exchange industry had become
an attractive destination for established players from the existing financial system such as
Robinhood, Cash App, Venmo, Interactive Brokerage, and Square. Brokerage giants such as
Charles Schwab, E-trade and Deutsche Bank were also looking to enter this space.LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. To examine how external and internal forces affect competitive strategy.
2. To investigate the challenges of choosing an appropriate competitive strategy.
TEACHING PLAN
The Coinbase case focuses on the initial stage of the strategic management process: an
assessment of the internal and external environment within which an enterprise hopes to achieve
a sustainable competitive advantage. The Coinbase story can also be used to investigate how the
introduction of new ventures into a developing marketplace can create disruption as existing
entities try to respond to multiple threats from competitors. In such a dynamic environment, who
can survive and thrive?
For more advanced students this case allows for discussion of the impact of innovation on
multiple stakeholders, for instance the intersection of for-profit firms and local government. To
what degree can issues of government compliance and regulations affect innovation in an
industry? What challenges or opportunities might exist?
In 2008 Michael Porter made an important point about the presence of complements, those
products or services that can be used together with an industry’s product: “complements arise
when the customer benefit of two products combined is greater than the sum of each product’s
value in isolation. Computer hardware and software, for instance, are valuable together and
worthless when separated” (Porter, 2008, p. 86.3)
In the Coinbase case none of the businesses would be able to successfully function without the
complement of a smart phone and an app, and they are all subject to public policies established in
various states or countries, all of which must be negotiated individually. In addition, all the
cryptocurrency players relied on support from the traditional banking system for transfers and
currency exchanges, while hoping that merchants would eventually accept cryptocurrencies for
transactions. This reinforces the need to do a thorough assessment of the entire stakeholder
landscape prior to making strategic decisions.
APPROPRIATE CLASS LEVEL
This case is best for an upper-level undergraduate or graduate course in strategic management,
focusing on the initial stage of the strategic management process: an assessment of the internal
and external environment within which an enterprise hopes to achieve a sustainable competitive
advantage. It also lends itself to an assessment of stakeholder engagement and potential tradeoffs
that might be necessary in a regulated environment. The Coinbase story can also be used to
investigate innovation and how the introduction of new ventures into a developing marketplace
can create disruption as existing entities try to respond to multiple threats from competitors. In
such a dynamic environment, who can survive and thrive?You can also read
