Generally speaking, regulation is most easily dealt with by the market leader. They have capital that can be used to meet requirements, and can engage with regulators to make sure the regulation can be achieved by them.
That actually improves the situation for them. (Similar to how GPDR improved Google and Facebook's position in the ad market against competitors)
Re:Coinbase from YC to DPO
by betterunix2 on Thursday April 15, 2021 @08:57AM
(#26819884)
Did you read what you were replying to? Regulations elsewhere in the market could threaten Coinbase, regardless of their ability to handle compliance costs in their own niche. In their own filing Coinbase admitted that the value of their company is highly correlated with the value of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency -- so any regulation that impacts Bitcoin will likely impact Coinbase, even if the impact is indirect.
There is also an "inverse" regulatory risk for Coinbase. In the best case (where cryptocurrencies are actually being used as payment systems at any significant scale) cryptocurrencies fill a need that is not being filled by existing banks as a result of regulations on the financial industry. Instead of more stringent regulations being imposed on cryptocurrencies, less stringent regulations could be imposed on the mainstream financial system that would allow banks to create more convenient electronic payment systems. The need for a cryptocurrency exchange could implode if the relevant technologies (e.g. offline ecash) were deployed; you would "withdraw" or "deposit" money in the bank just like paper notes. There is even a case for such a system if banking regulations became stricter e.g. if banks were forced to deploy a less fraud-prone and more privacy-preserving system than the credit/debit card system in use today.