You’ve probably read the exciting news by now that CoinDesk has acquired TradeBlock. (Read the press release here.) This is an extraordinary milestone for both companies.
Four years ago when I joined CoinDesk as CEO, I was energized by the opportunity to build the company into a global media and events superpower and a go-to news resource for the emerging crypto industry. With support from millions of readers around the world, we’ve accomplished quite a lot toward that audacious goal.
Yet CoinDesk still had a missing piece before it could truly become the media platform for the next generation of investing.
Now with TradeBlock as part of CoinDesk, we have the missing piece that rounds out an all-encompassing, one-stop news and information platform for investors. CoinDesk now stands as the most trusted, influential media platform for news, events and data serving a growing global community engaged in the transformation of the financial system and the emerging crypto economy.
The pace of that enormous transformation and the movement toward mass adoption is happening more quickly than most people recognize. It’s fueled by household-name companies, mainstream users in the developing world and, most recently, by deep-pocketed institutional investors. Just look at just a few of the headlines on CoinDesk in the last few months:
- PayPal embraces crypto, enabling 350 million users and 26 million merchants worldwide to learn and engage with crypto assets.
- The MassMutual insurance company’s $100M purchase may presage a $600B Institutional Flood of Money into bitcoin.
- Guggenheim CIO Scott Minerd thinks bitcoin should be worth $400K.
- Jefferies' Christopher Wood is cutting gold in favor of bitcoin.
Adoption of crypto assets such as bitcoin by investors will accelerate in 2021 as the mainstream narrative catches up with the rapid market movements at the end of last year. CoinDesk, of course, has known all along that while the internet transformed much of the global economy, the global financial system is still ripe for disruption.
The big idea of decentralizing that system with crypto technology has created an extremely powerful movement to improve people’s lives. That force cannot be reversed.
What does all that have to do with CoinDesk buying TradeBlock? Two key points:
First, TradeBlock is the industry standard in providing pricing data, indexes and trading solutions for professional investors who are engaging with crypto technology and allocating money to digital assets. For CoinDesk to continue to fulfill its grand vision, we aim to serve the professional investing crowd with greater urgency and focus to solve their needs. By marrying together CoinDesk’s market-leading news, commentary, video, podcasts, educational events and research coverage with the TradeBlock suite of institutional-grade pricing data, indexes and trading services, CoinDesk will be the premier platform for all crypto investors and the next generation of investing.
Second, it’s an important step for the crypto industry and our shared movement toward creating a better financial system that ultimately improves people’s lives. Professional investors manage millions of people’s retirement savings. Self-directed savings accounts like 401(k) plans outnumber defined pensions, social security is inadequate as the general safety net, central banks have pushed interest rates to zero and 40 years of structural income inequality limits savings anyway. How do endowments, hedge funds, asset managers and others offer products and services that generate the required return that savers need for a respectful retirement? It’s a massive global societal problem.
It’s inevitable that the financial innovation we’re witnessing in digital asset markets will move into the mainstream, and this convergence will translate into a meaningful financial impact on people’s lives. I’m convinced that as the regulatory and technological ecosystem for crypto assets evolves, more and more professional investors will allocate capital to crypto to meet the needs of millions of savers.
CoinDesk is already the trusted news and event company for millions of early adopters and for individual investors who are discovering crypto for the first time. Now, with TradeBlock, CoinDesk’s trusted platform is ready to meet the data and trading needs of professional investors too.
We’ll maintain TradeBlock as a wholly owned, independent subsidiary. This will allow us both to maintain TradeBlock’s commitment to data security and confidentiality for its clients and to safeguard the integrity of CoinDesk’s journalism in keeping with our independence guidelines.
We plan to invest in TradeBlock’s platform and services to better serve its existing customers as well as to be ready for the coming tidal wave of professional investors. We welcome partnerships with other leading crypto data providers who share our goals to serve professional investors adopting crypto into their portfolios.
All that said, like any acquisition it just came down to people. I’ve known the TradeBlock founders and CEO for years. They share our grand vision, our values for how we work, and our passion for creating a better financial system.
It’s a great team that we are thrilled to welcome to the CoinDesk family, and I’m super excited to expand on what they have accomplished.
I couldn’t be more proud of what both the CoinDesk and TradeBlock teams have built for the industry. Together it’s going to be a big year of growth for the trajectory of crypto. Let’s do this!
