Coinbase, who recently acquired broker-dealer Keystone Capital Corp in June 2018, announced the addition of Jeff Horowitz as the Cryptocurrency exchange’s new Chief Compliance Officer. Prior to joining Coinbase, Horowitz served as the Global Head of Compliance at Pershing, and previously held positions managing AML and compliance programs at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.
"As Coinbase — along with the cryptocurrency space as a whole — grows and matures, continued regulatory compliance across all the varying jurisdictions globally will be critical," Coinbase President and Chief Operating Officer Asiff Hirji wrote in a blog post Tuesday. "Adding Jeff to our team is one more important step along this journey."
Following the acquisition of Keystone, which included Venovate Marketplace, LLC, Coinbase is registered as an Alternative Trading System (ATS) with the SEC, which allows them to trade securities in a regulatory compliant manner. This is a path that US-based crypto exchanges and offering platforms will need to take if they plan to sell or trade blockchain-based securities in the future.
Coinbase’s strategy and recent actions towards building out a program to comply with anticipated regulation support CRC’s steadfast position that the key to operating successfully in the digital currency market is continually moving towards legitimizing the asset class, not only from the prospective of regulators, but institutional and wary retail investors as well. Scrupulous attention to regulatory developments and visible effort to serve the best interest of clients and safeguard assets and personal information will distinguish a crypto exchange from it’s regulation-shirking counterparts in the industry. CRC continues to maintain that this approach will satisfy regulators and investors alike, and will allow the digital currency market to flourish within the bounds of regulation and client service.
CRC boasts a team of experts equipped to support your firm throughout the entire New Member Application (NMA) and ATS registration processes, from coordinating the initial steps to submitting the finalized application. For more information, or to speak with a Compliance Specialist about your digital currency needs, please contact Mitch Avnet at (646)346-2468 or mavnet@compliance-risk.com.
