{"id":20212,"date":"2019-04-24T13:57:17","date_gmt":"2019-04-24T13:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ci027cfe6e20102697"},"modified":"2019-04-24T13:57:17","modified_gmt":"2019-04-24T13:57:17","slug":"coinbase-closing-markets-office-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/markets\/coinbase-closing-markets-office-chicago","title":{"rendered":"Coinbase Closing Markets Office in Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"
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According to a report from Fortune<\/em><\/a> on April 23, 2019, the U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase will shut down its Chicago office.<\/p>\n

Coinbase will scale back plans for a high-frequency trade matching engine in development there, software that automatically matches trade bids to complete trades at a higher rate. The exchange will also lay off about 30 engineers and transfer others to its San Francisco office.<\/p>\n

An unnamed Coinbase spokesperson told Fortune<\/em> that the closure was due to a change in the company’s focus and that the exchange will instead work on growing its custody and over-the-counter trading services.<\/p>\n

Coinbase launched its Chicago office in May 2018, as a hub for the team working on Coinbase Markets, its electronic marketplace of liquidity and participants. At the time, the exchange<\/a> noted that the office would provide the company with a vast pool of highly experienced and skilled engineers who would help improve service offerings.<\/p>\n

The team was led by Derek Groothius, a former software engineer at DRM, and Paul Bauerschmidt, who previously worked as an executive at CME Group, according to additional reports<\/a> about the closure. In light of the recent development, both men are leaving the company.<\/p>\n

The move could also be a bid for Coinbase to improve profitability. On April 18, 2019, Reuters reported<\/a> that the exchange managed to rake in $520 million in revenue for 2018, a figure that was 60 percent less than analysts had predicted.<\/p>\n

Estimates by news platform The Block<\/a> revealed that salaries of the engineers working on the trade matching engine were as high as $6 million annually, not to mention the technological costs, office space, staff bonuses and other administrative outlays.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase will shut down its Chicago office and scale back plans for a high-frequency trade matching engine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3435,"featured_media":20213,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[3407,190,468],"class_list":{"0":"post-20212","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-markets","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-coinbase","10":"tag-trading"},"author_data":{"id":3435,"name":"Jimmy Aki","nicename":"jimmy-aki","avatar_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/jimmy-aki-promo-image-96x96.jpg"},"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/coinbase-provides-wider-support-for-crypto-to-crypto-conversions.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3435"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}