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Coinbase plans to introduce a service dedicated to targeting the self-managed pension sector in Australia.
The CEO of the Asia-Pacific exchange, John O’Loghlen, told Bloomberg: “We do not consider it cannibalization of ETFs.” Let’s see all the details below.
Summary
Australia: Coinbase’s approach to attract and retain pension funds
As anticipated, Coinbase is currently developing a targeted service for the self-managed pension sector in Australia, as reported by the CEO of the exchange for the Asia-Pacific region, John O’Loghlen, in an interview with Bloomberg.
The involvement of cryptocurrencies in the pension landscape is not a novelty. In fact, starting from March 2019, self-managed funds in Australia have seen a significant increase in investments in cryptocurrencies.
According to the most recent data from the Australian Taxation Office, investments in cryptocurrencies have reached almost 1 billion Australian dollars (equivalent to 664 million US dollars).
Thus marking a sharp increase compared to the 197 million Australian dollars recorded in December 2019. However, it has emerged that thousands of Australians have suffered significant losses.
In particular, losing millions of dollars, using self-managed pension funds to invest in cryptocurrencies, as reported by Reuters in March 2023.
O’Loghlen emphasized that “Self-managed super funds could simply make a single allocation, set it and forget it.”
Indicating therefore that Coinbase is actively working on a targeted offer to meet these specific customer needs, with the goal of attracting and retaining them within the platform.
The growing interest in cryptocurrencies in the self-managed pension sector could be fueled by the enthusiasm generated by the recent approvals of spot ETFs in the United States.
Furthermore, also from the expectations that Australia may follow the same path during this year.
O’Loghlen clarified that this new service is not seen as a threat to ETF operators, but rather as a response to the growing interest, providing potential investors with direct access through their self-management portals.
Resumption of Coinbase operations after a four-hour interruption
Coinbase has finally resumed operations after an interference of the system that left users locked out for hours.
On May 14th, Coinbase announced that it had been hit by a serious system issue that caused significant disruptions for both desktop and mobile users.
Through a social media post shared on various platforms, the company described the event as a “system-wide disruption,” which resulted in a temporary unavailability of its services.
The interruption started around 4:15 UTC on Tuesday and persisted for several hours, leaving users unable to access their accounts.
However, the company’s support team later announced that the services had been fully restored.
Initially, attempts to access the Coinbase website returned users an error message “Service 503 temporarily unavailable.”
Despite repeated attempts to request details on the exact cause of the problem, the company has not been able to provide a definitive explanation.
However, it fueled speculation about the possibility that it was due to system overload issues or server maintenance.
Even though Coinbase assured users that their funds were safe during the outage, the lack of a clear explanation has fueled further speculation among industry observers.