距離華爾街3000英里，新興的金融大佬正在玻璃堡壘之外蠢蠢欲動。公司總部位于舊金山市場街上方，占據(jù)了三層樓，可以欣賞海灣和城市全景。前臺放著裝滿硬幣巧克力的罐子，旁邊還貼著搞笑標志“初始巧克力供應(yīng)”（初始巧克力供應(yīng)英文為Initial Chocolate Offering，類似幣圈里的首次發(fā)行幣Initial Coin Offering——譯者注）。穿過前臺便是開放空間，角落沒有高層辦公室，從硅谷巨頭挖來的大牛就坐在新雇的員工旁邊，手里拿著免費的LaCroix氣泡水。這就是熱門創(chuàng)業(yè)公司Coinbase的總部，業(yè)務(wù)是為區(qū)塊鏈和數(shù)字貨幣重設(shè)金融系統(tǒng)。

但想找到這里并不容易。公司大樓外和大堂外都沒有招牌，前臺外面的走廊里也沒有標識，只有金屬大門和對講機。他們解釋說，Coinbase的員工都很低調(diào)，因為多數(shù)人有虛擬加密貨幣，其中一些紙面上已成百萬富翁。一名工作人員說，安全措施是很有必要的，因為綁架者可能沖進來把人抓走，用“威脅拔指甲”之類酷刑逼問財產(chǎn)藏在哪里，而員工們將職業(yè)生涯和一生幸福押在充滿波動且未經(jīng)證實的金融技術(shù)上已然壓力巨大。

這就是在Coinbase工作的感覺，情緒經(jīng)常在樂觀和焦慮之間輪轉(zhuǎn)。公司成立于2012年，是方便個人和企業(yè)購買存儲數(shù)字貨幣的交易所，最主要業(yè)務(wù)當屬比特幣。2017年投資者普遍對數(shù)字貨幣產(chǎn)生興趣時，Coinbase剛好乘上東風，成為21世紀新數(shù)字淘金大潮里的富國銀行（富國銀行前身是一家在淘金熱中興起的快遞公司，直到1905年才真正變身為銀行?！g者注）。

Coinbase沒花太久，就成為加密貨幣領(lǐng)域里第一家估值達10億美元的 “獨角獸”，也是第一家年收入10億美元的公司。（監(jiān)管文件顯示該私人公司已實現(xiàn)盈利，不過并未透露具體數(shù)字。）Coinbase聲稱有2500萬賬戶，這一數(shù)字比兩年前增加了五倍，與查爾斯·施瓦布和富達經(jīng)紀業(yè)務(wù)等業(yè)內(nèi)巨頭并駕齊驅(qū)?？萍济襟w都在熱議全新估值和更高的融資輪次，還有即將到來的上市。Coinbase占據(jù)了先發(fā)者地位，儼然已成加密領(lǐng)域看齊的大本營。大批頂級行業(yè)人士都與35歲的Coinbase創(chuàng)始人兼首席執(zhí)行官布萊恩·阿姆斯特朗或多或少有些關(guān)系。

盡管起步很早，頭部競爭仍然激烈。Coinbase的優(yōu)勢主要因為去年加密貨幣投機激增。如今回想2017年比特幣的走勢，仿佛已是遙遠的記憶，因為越來越多投資者開始質(zhì)疑資產(chǎn)的價值，以及到底能否持續(xù)。比起去年12月的峰值，許多流行的數(shù)字貨幣價格已跌去80%甚至90%，泡沫破裂后市值已縮水6000億美元，令人震驚。雖然新進入市場收費更低的競爭對手可能將核心服務(wù)轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)樯唐?，Coinbase也解決了市場繁榮期間影響用戶體驗的自身問題，但市場崩潰意味著交易清淡，傭金收入也隨之減少。

領(lǐng)導(dǎo)Coinbase的是個性內(nèi)向的創(chuàng)始人阿姆斯特朗，他認為2017年的加密貨幣熱潮只是一個插曲。他這一代的數(shù)字弄潮兒都認為數(shù)字貨幣和背后的區(qū)塊鏈技術(shù)只是工具，將使投資、借貸和儲蓄更快、更便宜，也更平等。他希望Coinbase成為向大眾提供工具的銀行帝國。

阿姆斯特朗和同事們已為未來奠定了基礎(chǔ)，他們努力尋求監(jiān)管機構(gòu)支持，也不斷投資新技術(shù)，只是還沒大規(guī)模說服金融界相信加密技術(shù)的必要性。如果阿姆斯特朗無法提供令人信服的長期案例，崩潰的可能不只是Coinbase，還可能波及整個行業(yè)。

THE NEW TITANS OF FINANCE prowl a glass fortress 3,000 miles from Wall Street. High above San Francisco’s Market Street, their headquarters take up three floors with sweeping views of the bay and city below. The reception desk bears jars brimming with chocolate coins near a jokey “Initial Chocolate Offering” sign. Beyond it, in an open space with no corner offices, big shots poached from Silicon Valley giants sit beside junior hires clutching free cans of LaCroix. This is the home base of Coinbase, the buzzy startup that wants to rewire the financial system around blockchains and digital currency.

But good luck finding it. There’s no logo outside the building or in the lobby. Nor is there any signage in the hallway outside that reception desk, just fortified metal doors and an intercom. Coinbase employees maintain a low profile, they explain, because most own virtual cryptocurrency, some ?in quantities that make them multimillionaires on paper.? A kidnapper could capture someone and “pull out their fingernails,” a staffer says, to learn the location of their fortune—as if betting your career and well-being on a volatile, unproven financial technology weren’t stressful enough.

Such is life at Coinbase, a company where the mood alternates between upbeat and under siege. It was founded in 2012 as an exchange that lets individuals and companies easily buy and store digital currencies, most notably Bitcoin. And by 2017, when investor interest in those currencies moved to the mainstream, Coinbase was perfectly positioned to capitalize, becoming a 21st-century Wells Fargo for a new digital gold rush.

In short order, Coinbase became the first U.S. cryptocurrency startup to earn a $1 billion “unicorn” valuation from investors, and the first to bring in $1 billion in annual revenue. (The still-private company is profitable, according to regulatory filings, though it won’t disclose specific earnings.) Coinbase now claims 25 million customer accounts—a five- fold increase from two years ago—putting it on a par with traditional finance giants like Charles Schwab and the brokerage arm of Fidelity. The tech press is buzzing about new, higher-valuation funding rounds and a looming IPO. And the company’s first-mover status has made it something of a home planet for the universe of crypto-oriented business; a surprising number of top industry figures are connected, in one way or another, to Coinbase and its 35-year-old founder and CEO, Brian Armstrong.

Still, life at the top is tense. Coinbase owes its preeminence in part to last year’s unprecedented speculative surge in cryptocurrency investing. Today the buoyant Bitcoin runs of 2017 seem a distant memory, as more investors question the value of assets that have?yet to prove their staying power. Many of the most popular digital currencies trade 80% or even 90% lower than their peaks last December, and the popping of the bubble has erased a staggering $600 billion in market capitalization. The collapse has meant less trading and less commission revenue for Coinbase, even as new low-fee competitors threaten? to turn the company’s core service into a commodity—and even as the company recovers from self-inflicted problems that alienated customers during the boom.

Presiding over all this is an introverted founder who sees the cryptomania of 2017 as just one chapter in a longer story. Armstrong belongs to a generation of evangelists who view digital currencies, and the blockchain technology on which they’re based, as tools that will make investing, borrowing, and saving money faster, cheaper, and more egalitarian. And he wants Coinbase to become the banking empire that brings those tools to the masses.

Armstrong and his colleagues have laid the groundwork for that future, carefully wooing regulators and investing in new technology. What he hasn’t done yet is convince the wider financial world that crypto is a must-have technology. If Armstrong can’t eventually make a compelling long-term case, it may be not just Coinbase that crumbles, but an entire industry.

阿姆斯特朗在加州圣何塞長大，經(jīng)常感覺無聊和拘束。他的父母都是成功的工程師，提供了舒適的生活和積極求知的氛圍。雖然阿姆斯特朗跟20年前蘋果的史蒂夫·喬布斯，還有英特爾的安迪·格魯夫一樣，認為互聯(lián)網(wǎng)是改變社會的工具，他也擔心自己錯過了最好的時機，說起來兩位大佬開創(chuàng)電腦和芯片商業(yè)帝國的地方離他家只有幾分鐘路程?！拔掖髮W(xué)畢業(yè)開始工作時，覺得可能已經(jīng)太晚了，因為互聯(lián)網(wǎng)革命已經(jīng)發(fā)生。”他說。

然而，阿姆斯特朗很早就趕上另一場革命的開端。2009年圣誕節(jié)期間，他在家瀏覽網(wǎng)頁時讀到一篇化名中本聰?shù)淖髡咦珜懙?頁文檔。文中介紹了一種超出銀行或政府監(jiān)管范圍的全球貨幣，非常吸引人。他忍不住讀了好幾遍，對媽媽喊他下樓慶祝節(jié)日都充耳不聞。

如今中本聰?shù)恼撐囊雅e世聞名，文檔中主要搭建了比特幣的架構(gòu)，還介紹了如何使用全球計算機網(wǎng)絡(luò)保存交易的共同記錄。像其他早期信奉者一樣，阿姆斯特朗立刻迷上讓金融體系最大限度降低中介和政客影響的想法。去阿根廷旅行一趟之后他越發(fā)著迷。他回想自己坐在布宜諾斯艾利斯的餐館里，菜單上的價格幾乎每天都在變，因為劇烈的通貨膨脹吞噬著普通人的儲蓄。他認為，比特幣代表著儲存或轉(zhuǎn)移財富的方式，超出了貪婪國家的控制范圍。比特幣就是數(shù)字黃金。

GROWING UP IN SAN JOSE, Armstrong often felt bored and confined. His parents, both successful engineers, provided a comfortable upbringing and a brisk intellectual environment. But while Armstrong saw the Internet as a tool to change society—in the same way Apple’s Steve Jobs and Intel’s Andy Grove who built their empires minutes from his househad done with computers and chips, two decades earlier—he fretted that others had beat him to it. “By the time I graduated from college and I was starting to work, I felt maybe I was too late—this Internet revolution had happened,” he said.

Armstrong arrived early, however, for the genesis of a different revolution. While surfing the web at his parents’ house on Christmas of 2009, he encountered a nine-page paper written by a pseudonymous author named Satoshi Nakamoto. The idea it described—a global currency beyond the reach of banks or governments—was so compelling he began to read ?it again, tuning out his mother’s entreaties to join the holiday festivities downstairs.

Nakamoto’s paper is now famous for describing the architecture of Bitcoin—and the broader notion of using a global network of computers to maintain a common record ?of any kind of transaction. Like other early believers, Armstrong became enamored of the idea of a financial system that could minimize the influence of middlemen and politicians. His fixation grew after a trip to Argentina. He recalls sitting in restaurants in Buenos Aires where prices on menus were covered with stickers that changed almost daily—symptoms of rampant inflation that had wiped out the savings of ordinary people. Bitcoin, he thought, represented a way to store or transfer wealth beyond the control of rapacious states. It was digital gold.

然而要通過數(shù)字方式轉(zhuǎn)移財富，普通人就得使用加密貨幣，早期還是很不切實際的。潛在的比特幣用戶不得不費勁地下載“錢包”軟件，向錢包轉(zhuǎn)賬還得通過離岸銀行，要么就得跟影子中介合作。

阿姆斯特朗的目標是讓交易過程更類似在線購買股票，2012年辭去Airbnb的工程師職位追求夢想。他設(shè)計了Coinbase，客戶可用傳統(tǒng)的銀行賬戶購買加密貨幣。以前購買比特幣需要嚴格的技術(shù)支持，但在Coinbase感覺就像使用PayPal或Venmo，而且Coinbase不要求用戶使用復(fù)雜的加密密鑰存儲貨幣，而由網(wǎng)站代為存儲。

事實證明，市場對便捷的比特幣服務(wù)存在大量需求。在2012年年底推出不到一年后，Coinbase用戶就達到百萬。加密貨幣飽受毒品交易和洗錢問題困擾之際，Coinbase努力遵守客戶身份法律以及美國銀行領(lǐng)域其他法規(guī)。去年數(shù)字貨幣狂熱期間，曾出現(xiàn)數(shù)百種新型加密“數(shù)字貨幣”投資，但該公司拒絕大部分貨幣交易，主要是擔心詐騙，或是美國證券交易委員會找麻煩。（現(xiàn)在共有15種加密貨幣，市值超過10億美元，Coinbase只提供其中5種貨幣交易。）阿姆斯特朗雖然煩惱合規(guī)問題，并未因此陷入加密貨幣的地下圈子，圈子里普遍鐘愛可卡因、蘭博基尼和反政府陰謀論。Coinbase謹慎經(jīng)營確實有效果，監(jiān)管機構(gòu)即將批準其經(jīng)紀商牌照。Coinbase也在談判爭取聯(lián)邦銀行業(yè)務(wù)許可，這對比特幣領(lǐng)域的公司來說曾經(jīng)難以想象。

“金融產(chǎn)品領(lǐng)域最重要的是先發(fā)優(yōu)勢以及制定標準?！蓖缎猩８５虏魉固沟姆治鰩熆死锼沟侔病げ┍R表示，“Coinbase就擔負起了職責，也在設(shè)置監(jiān)管議程?！?/p>

For this vision to come to pass, though, ordinary people would have to use crypto- currency—and in its early days, that was wildly impractical. Would-be Bitcoiners had to engage in a recondite rigmarole of downloading “wallet” software and then funding the wallet with an offshore bank transfer or working with shadowy middlemen.

Armstrong’s vision was to make the process more akin to buying stock online. In 2012, he left his job as an engineer at Airbnb to make it a reality. He designed Coinbase to allow customers to use traditional bank accounts to purchase cryptocurrency. Whereas buying Bitcoin had once required serious tech chops, the Coinbase version was more like using PayPal or Venmo. And instead of requiring users to store currency using complicated cryptographic keys, Coinbase stored it on customers’ behalf.

There turned out to be plenty of demand for an easy-to-get Bitcoin service; barely a year after launching in late 2012, Coinbase reached the million-customer mark. At a time when concerns about drug dealing and money laundering hovered over the crypto world, Coinbase took pains to comply with know-your-customer laws and other strictures of U.S. banking law. And during last year’s mania, as hundreds of new crypto “coin” investments sprang up, the company—fearful of scams or trouble with the Securities and Exchange Commission—declined to sell the vast majority of them. (Today there are 15 cryptocurrencies with a market cap over $1 billion, but Coinbase offers trading in only five of them.) Fretting about compliance didn’t endear Armstrong to the crypto world’s self-styled renegades, whose tastes run towards cocaine, Lamborghinis and anti-government diatribes. But it has put Coinbase on the cusp of regulatory approval for a broker dealer license. It is also in talks to obtain a federal banking charter—a once unthinkable idea for any Bitcoin-related company.

“What matters in financial products is the first-mover advantage and who sets the standards,” says Christian Bolu, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein. “Coinbase is assuming that mantle and setting the regulatory agenda.”

Coinbase也是藍籌風險投資公司的寵兒，包括早期投資者Union Square Ventures和安德森·霍洛維茨。其中安德森·霍洛維茨2013年投資2500萬美元，也是在加密貨幣領(lǐng)域第一次真正下大賭注。欣賞阿姆斯特朗的人表示，這位年輕的首席執(zhí)行官很快就顯露追求改進的愿望?！懊看胃娒婧?，他都會提出追問?！卑驳律暮匣锶丝死锼埂さ峡松f。 “他一直很好奇，在尋找導(dǎo)師。”阿姆斯特朗追求自身進步堪稱病態(tài)。去年他獲得了飛行員執(zhí)照，但對駕駛飛機感到滿意時幾乎立刻失去興趣。在Coinbase，阿姆斯特朗總在告訴員工他和大家可以怎樣改進。他曾將人力資源部門給自己的績效評估發(fā)郵件給全體員工，征求改進意見。

他看很多很多書，主要通過音頻。他喜歡的領(lǐng)域包括科學(xué)和行為心理學(xué)等，但傾向管理技巧和偉人傳記（史蒂夫·喬布斯、萊特兄弟，德懷特·艾森豪威爾）。閱讀邁克爾·馬龍講述惠普歷史的《比爾和戴夫》之后，阿姆斯特朗鼓勵員工隨時找他討論想法，爭取搶在同行前面。“史蒂夫·沃茲尼亞克還在惠普當工程師時就設(shè)計出了蘋果第一代電腦Apple 1?！卑⒛匪固乩驶貞浀馈！爱敃r他在想：‘我這個創(chuàng)意不錯，惠普應(yīng)該批量生產(chǎn)?！萜諞]理他。然后他離開并造出了蘋果電腦，對吧？”看來阿姆斯特朗最害怕的就是成功機會近在咫尺卻失之交臂。

但當成功到來時，Coinbase和阿姆斯特朗發(fā)現(xiàn)要完善管理還有很多得學(xué)習。2017年，隨著比特幣和其他數(shù)字貨幣的價格上漲20倍甚至更高，Coinbase賺取了大筆交易費。阿姆斯特朗表示，最狂熱的那段時間，Coinbase每天有超過5萬新增注冊用戶。結(jié)果網(wǎng)站徹底崩潰，工程師修補漏洞感覺像用保鮮膜阻止雪崩。對Coinbase一些用戶來說，使用網(wǎng)站的體驗宛若地獄，經(jīng)常出現(xiàn)故障，訂單也無法提交。用戶在社交網(wǎng)站推特和Reddit吐槽賬戶資金無法正常顯示，客服對話框也毫無反應(yīng)，混亂延續(xù)了數(shù)日。不少用戶向美國商業(yè)促進局和證券交易委員會提出投訴。

與此同時，一些黑客也開始精心設(shè)計網(wǎng)絡(luò)釣魚和銀行詐騙手段。Coinbase一度拿出收入的10%解決詐騙相關(guān)問題。員工壓力也很大。網(wǎng)站崩潰后許多工程師和客服代表每天工作18小時，有些人實在無法忍受選擇離職。

另一次嚴重打擊發(fā)生在2017年6月21日，當時一只高凈值的“大戶”突然出手數(shù)百萬美元的數(shù)字貨幣以太坊，導(dǎo)致“閃電崩盤”，價格從320美元跌至10美分之后回升，觸發(fā)很多自動賣單，一些倒霉的投資者幾乎失去所有頭寸，只拿回很少一點本錢。與多數(shù)大型股票交易所不同，Coinbase遇到恐慌性拋售時沒有設(shè)立跌停線，這是重大的技術(shù)失誤。阿姆斯特朗最終決定取消部分交易幫助受害者，雖然恢復(fù)了平靜但代價高昂。

加密貨幣最熱的時期，Coinbase再次受到質(zhì)疑，這次是因為比特幣衍生品——比特幣現(xiàn)金。剛開始Coinbase拒絕支持新的貨幣，遭到一群客戶投訴后改變立場。去年12月Coinbase宣布調(diào)整之前，比特幣現(xiàn)金的價格出現(xiàn)非正常上漲，有人猜測Coinbase員工泄露內(nèi)幕信息，預(yù)期新資金流入之前先大規(guī)模收購。一名前雇員介紹，由于受到強烈抗議，Coinbase突然刪除了通訊軟件Slack上的兩個頻道，員工們經(jīng)常在該處討論加密貨幣市場和交易策略。

Coinbase完成內(nèi)部調(diào)查后得出結(jié)論，稱員工沒有從事內(nèi)幕交易。公司告訴《財富》雜志，關(guān)閉Slack聊天頻道是出于謹慎考慮，而不是因為存在不當行為。隨著圍繞加密貨幣的監(jiān)管制度不斷發(fā)展，基于內(nèi)部信息從事交易到底是不是非法還不明確。盡管如此，此番爭議加上客服問題仍然傳達了一個信息：雖然加密貨幣全國矚目，Coinbase似乎并未準備好。

種種問題并未嚇跑投資人。2017年8月，Coinbase募得1億美元，估值為18億美元。募資成功后阿姆斯特朗有資金也有影響力，可以聘用更多人才幫公司前行。Coinbase挖到了在推特長期擔任運營主管的蒂娜·巴特納格爾，協(xié)助重整客戶服務(wù)，又請來惠普資深人士奧斯?！ず諣柤獡问紫\營官。阿姆斯特朗還承諾招聘多元化：根據(jù)公司規(guī)定，副總裁級別以上的每個空缺職位招聘時，都要面試三位符合條件的弱勢群體人員，33%的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)職位由女性擔任。

危機發(fā)生后，員工對高管的淡定態(tài)度很是贊嘆。阿姆斯特朗也相信隨著公司的發(fā)展，自己也站穩(wěn)了腳跟。一開始，他回憶說：“我認為（首席執(zhí)行官）必須有大將之風，命令都靠吼。但我覺得比較喜歡自己的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)風格，感覺更容易協(xié)調(diào)。我的風格是努力尋求真相，而不是只想著做對。我也發(fā)現(xiàn)不應(yīng)該嘗試做不喜歡的東西，那是最糟糕的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)?！?/p>

過去一年Coinbase的員工人數(shù)翻了一番，達到近1,000人。人手充足之后，員工的工作生活平衡有所改善，徹夜工作的員工人數(shù)也減少了。阿姆斯特朗也向員工展示自己可以放松。具體舉措包括恢復(fù)公司早期的一些氛圍。Coinbase剛成立時，阿姆斯特朗和第三名員工奧拉夫·卡爾森-韋（現(xiàn)在管理美國最大的加密對沖基金Polychain Capital）經(jīng)常組隊，跟另一位聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人弗雷德·埃爾薩姆玩Halo游戲。辦公室里還有乒乓球和攀巖區(qū)?，F(xiàn)在的放松手段包括阿姆斯特朗在辦公室里和卡拉OK高唱喜歡的迪士尼歌曲等。據(jù)一位員工（他說阿姆斯特朗“唱歌很棒”）介紹，最近阿姆斯特朗跟員工在舊金山卡斯特羅區(qū)一家酒吧合唱《小美人魚》。

谷歌資深人士麥克·杜達斯表示，在巴特納格爾帶領(lǐng)下，客戶服務(wù)明顯改善，他經(jīng)營一家加密貨幣新聞創(chuàng)業(yè)公司The Block。2018年年中，Coinbase宣稱已消除95%的積壓，并表示可在10小時內(nèi)回應(yīng)投訴，比起比特幣狂熱時已經(jīng)進步很大，當時很多投訴都得等一周或更長才能解決。

當然，投訴量之所以大幅降低，主要因為比特幣狂熱也已退潮。12月以來，加密貨幣價格跌去的百分比較2000年-2002年互聯(lián)網(wǎng)泡沫破裂期間納斯達克跌幅還大。研究公司Diar最近報道稱，Coinbase的交易量已從1月的200多億美元下降到今夏的不到50億美元。Coinbase收取傭金高達每筆交易價值的1.99%，因此價值和交易量同步下降也造成雙重打擊。此外由于新競爭對手加入，利潤也承受威脅。過去一年，金融科技公司Robinhood、Square和歐洲經(jīng)紀公司eToro等紛紛通過低成本或無成本交易吸引加密貨幣投資者。對手敲響了戰(zhàn)鼓，阿姆斯特朗最主要使命更加緊迫，他一直希望將Coinbase轉(zhuǎn)型為多元化的區(qū)塊鏈銀行巨頭，不再僅僅依賴交易收入。

華盛頓特區(qū)一個酷暑晚上，阿姆斯特朗身穿棕褐色西裝，跟身邊幾人在杜邦環(huán)島附近一家酒店餐廳，食物既昂貴又一般。他一邊吃水煮三文魚中一邊回想當天跟立法者和監(jiān)管高層會面的情形。阿姆斯特朗曾是硅谷工程師，并未被政治氣氛震撼?！拔易钕矚g的是地鐵?！彼傅氖请[藏式單軌列車，官員和精英訪客可乘坐往返國會大廈。首席執(zhí)行官和團隊一直堅持向政界普及加密貨幣和區(qū)塊鏈知識，效果正逐漸顯現(xiàn)，因為越來越多監(jiān)管官員認為該技術(shù)是一種有用的工具，而不是犯罪威脅，Coinbase和競爭對手也迎來更多機會。

除了即將到手的經(jīng)紀商牌照外，Coinbase還獲準為想購買加密貨幣資產(chǎn)的大型機構(gòu)客戶提供托管服務(wù)。如果能吸引共同基金、養(yǎng)老金和私募股權(quán)基金等大客戶，利潤會相當可觀。目前已有一些進展：今年早些時候，其針對專業(yè)交易員和機構(gòu)（主要是富裕“家族理財辦公室”），還有專門投資加密貨幣的對沖基金的服務(wù)超越了個人用戶平臺，交易量占比最高。

“我認為打進機構(gòu)市場并不容易?！弊稍児綠reenwich Associates的金融技術(shù)專家理查德·約翰遜警告稱， “機構(gòu)市場是另一種市場。”而且當前主流基金經(jīng)理都在等更有力的監(jiān)管框架出現(xiàn)才敢出手投資。

The company is also a darling of blue-chip venture capital firms, including early investors Union Square Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz. The latter’s $25 million investment in 2013 came as the VC community’s first truly big bet on cryptocurrency. The young CEO, his backers say, quickly revealed an instinct for self-improvement. “Every meeting you have with him, he sends follow-up questions,” says Chris Dixon, a partner at Andreessen. “He’s constantly curious and looking for mentorship.” Armstrong’s bid to better himself is almost pathological. Last year, he obtained his pilot’s license but largely lost interest upon becoming satisfied he could fly a plane. At Coinbase, Armstrong will grill employees about what he, and they, could do better: He once emailed his performance review from HR to the entire staff in order to solicit tips.

He consumes large numbers of books, mostly by audio. His tastes include science and behavioral psychology, but lean to management bromides and great man biographies (Steve Jobs, the Wright Brothers, Dwight Eisenhower). Reading Michael Malone’s Bill and Dave, a history of Hewlett-Packard, prompted Armstrong? to urge employees to approach him anytime with ideas, lest someone else snap them up. “Steve Wozniak, when he was an engineer at HP, brought them the Apple 1,” Armstrong recounts. “He’s like, ‘I built this, I think HP should manufacture it.’ And they said no. And, of course, then he left and created Apple Computer, right?” Armstrong’s nightmare, it seems, would be for success to elude him after being right under his nose.

BUT WHEN SUCCESS did arrive, Coinbase and Armstrong found they had a?lot to learn about managing it. In 2017, as Bitcoin and other digital currencies rose 20-fold or more in value, Coinbase made a killing on trading fees. During the height of the mania, Armstrong has said, Coinbase signed up more than 50,000 new customers a day. This led the company’s website to crash and sputter and leave the site’s engineers to feel like they were holding back an avalanche with Saran Wrap. For some Coinbase customers, the site became a hellish experience, as glitches reigned and orders went unfilled. Twitter and the website Reddit lit up with anguished accounts of money stuck in limbo and customer service tickets landing in black holes, unresolved for days. Dozens of other customers filed complaints with the Better Business Bureau and the SEC.

Hackers, meanwhile, began targeting customers with elaborate phishing and bank fraud scams; Coinbase was at one point spending 10% ?of its revenue on resolving fraud-related issues. Employees weren’t happy, either. The chaos left many engineers and customer service reps working 18-hour days, and some quit in exhaustion.

Another serious hiccup occurred on June 21, 2017, when a high-net-worth “whale” abruptly sold millions of dollars’ worth of the popular currency Ethereum. The result was a “flash crash,” as prices plunged from $320 to under 10￠ before shooting back up again, triggering automated sell orders that resulted in some unlucky investors ditching their whole position for a pittance. Unlike most big stock exchanges, Coinbase hadn’t built a trip wire to halt trading in the case of a panic selloff—a big technical blunder. Armstrong eventually decided to rescue the victims by canceling their side of the trades—a calm-restoring but costly proposition.

At the peak of the crypto boom, Coinbase took another hit to its credibility over its handling of Bitcoin Cash, a spinoff of Bitcoin. It initially declined to support the new cur- rency, then reversed its position after a wave of customer complaints. But in December, just before Coinbase announced the reversal, there was a sudden, unusual uptick in Bitcoin Cash’s price—sparking speculation that Coinbase employees had traded on inside information and bought the currency in anticipation of an influx of new money. According to a former employee, the outcry led Coinbase to abruptly delete two of its channels on the messaging app Slack, which employees used to discuss the crypto market and trading strategies.

Coinbase concluded after an internal investigation that its employees had not engaged in insider trading, and the company tells Fortune it closed the Slack channels out of an abundance of caution rather than any wrongdoing. Given the evolving regulatory regime around cryptocurrency, it’s not clear that trading the currencies based on inside information would even be illegal. Still, the controversy, combined with the site’s customer service woes, sent a message: Just as cryptocurrency was commanding a national spotlight, Coinbase seemed unready for primetime.

Its struggles didn’t scare away investors, however: In August 2017, the startup raised $100 million, giving it a $1.8 billion valuation. That provided Armstrong with the capital and clout to hire talent that could help him right the ship. Coinbase poached longtime Twitter operations executive Tina Bhatnagar to help repair its customer service shambles, and it brought on HP veteran Asiff Hirji as COO. Armstrong has also committed to hiring inclusively: Coinbase, by company rule, interviews three qualified people from underrepresented backgrounds for each open position at the VP level and up, and 33% of leadership roles are held by women.

Employees give their boss high marks for staying on an even keel as the crises unfolded. Armstrong himself believes he found his footing as the company grew. At first, he recalls, “I thought [a CEO] had to be a military general, barking orders. But I feel I’ve embraced my own style of leadership, which is a little bit more collaborative. It’s seeking the truth, not trying to be right. I also realized you shouldn’t try to be something you’re not because that’s the worst kind of leadership.”

Coinbase has also doubled its headcount over the past year to nearly 1,000. The extra staffing has helped restore work/life balance and reduce the number of all-nighters. Arm- strong, for his part, is showing his staff that he too can chill out. This includes recapturing some of the vibe from the company’s early days. Back then, Armstrong and Coinbase’s third employee, Olaf Carlson-Wee (who today runs Polychain Capital, the largest U.S. crypto hedge-fund) would team up in epic Halo matches against co-founder Fred Ehrsam, a former high school gaming champ. There was also a lot of ping-pong and rock-climbing. Today’s version of chilling out includes Armstrong indulging his penchant for belting Disney songs in the office and at off-site karaoke. One staffer (who calls Armstrong a “great singer”) described the CEO leading a recent Little Mermaid sing-along at a bar in San Francisco’s Castro District.

Customer service, meanwhile, has improved dramatically under Bhatnagar, says Mike Dudas, a Google veteran who runs a crypto-news startup The Block. By mid-2018, Coinbase claimed to have eliminated 95% of its backlogs, and it says it responds to complaints within 10 hours—a far cry from the peak of the Bitcoin mania, when many tickets took a week or longer to resolve.

Of course, if complaints are a far cry from where they were, that’s because Bitcoin mania is too. Cryptocurrency prices have lost more ground since December in percentage terms than the Nasdaq did during the dotcom bust of 2000–02. The research firm Diar recently reported that Coinbase trading volume has dropped from over $20 billion in January to less than $5 billion a month this summer.?Since Coinbase charges commissions that range up to 1.99% of the value of each trade, the simultaneous plummeting of values and volumes is a double whammy. And its margins are under threat from new competition. Over the past year, fintech companies Robinhood and Square and European brokerage eToro have wooed crypto investors with low- or no-cost trading. That ominous drumbeat adds urgency to one of Armstrong’s biggest missions: converting Coinbase into a diversified blockchain-banking giant that isn’t solely dependent on trading revenue.

IT’S A SWELTERING EVENING in Washington, D.C. as Armstrong, clad in a tan suit, sits down for dinner. He and a small retinue are gathered in a hotel restaurant near Dupont Circle, where the food is both expensive and mediocre. Tucking into poached salmon, he reflects on his day meeting lawmakers and senior regulators. Armstrong, ever the Silicon Valley engineer, is not wowed by the political atmosphere. “I think my favorite part was the underground train,” he says, referring to the hidden monorail that whisks elected officials and elite visitors to and from the Capitol. Still, the CEO and his team have been persistent in educating the political class about cryptocurrency and blockchains. And these efforts are paying dividends, as more regulators see the technology as a useful tool rather than an inherently criminal threat—opening more opportunities for Coinbase and its competitors.

In addition to its impending broker-dealer license, Coinbase has won permission to provide custody services for big institutional customers that wish to own cryptocurrency assets. These services could prove lucrative if the company can lure more big players like mutual funds, pensions, and private equity funds to trade with it. There’s already some progress on this front: Earlier this year, its services aimed at professional traders and institutions—primarily wealthy “family offices” and cryptocurrency oriented hedge funds—surpassed its consumer platform as the company’s biggest source of trading volume.

“I don’t think it’s going to be easy,” cautions Richard Johnson, a financial technologies expert with consultancy Greenwich Associates. “The institutional market will be a different one for them to crack,” especially since mainstream fund managers are waiting for a stronger regulatory framework before investing.

監(jiān)管框架落地時，Coinbase最近的收購可能派上用場。Coinbase招聘了企業(yè)和業(yè)務(wù)發(fā)展副總裁艾米麗·蔡，她曾在領(lǐng)英負責40多筆收購。3月入職以來，蔡幫助Coinbase搶先收購了十多家小型區(qū)塊鏈和金融公司，拓展服務(wù)范圍。盡管如此，總喜歡自稱“加密貨幣屆谷歌”的Coinbase仍在尋找爆款收購對象，與交易平臺形成補充，就像谷歌用Gmail、地圖或YouTube支撐核心搜索服務(wù)一樣。

現(xiàn)在約翰遜和其他人表示，Coinbase最有前景的項目包括一些新型投資，稱為安全數(shù)字貨幣，代表區(qū)塊鏈上可投資的數(shù)字貨幣。阿姆斯特朗曾談到為此類數(shù)字貨幣搭建另類投資市場，由Coinbase運營。支持者稱，利用數(shù)字貨幣可將流動性較差且價格昂貴的資產(chǎn)，（如藝術(shù)品和其他收藏品等，一般由私營公司持有）轉(zhuǎn)換為方便交易的單元。

想理解安全數(shù)字貨幣及其含義就像1994年的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)一樣。正如20年前人們對“瀏覽器”或十年前的“app”感到困惑一樣，區(qū)塊鏈相關(guān)詞匯，例如“數(shù)字貨幣”和“錢包”等仍然讓許多人困惑。Coinbase的首席技術(shù)官巴拉吉·斯里尼瓦桑是最了解行業(yè)的人士之一，他今年38歲，魅力十足，梳著時尚的刺猬頭，黑白相間的胡茬，眼睛閃閃發(fā)亮。斯里尼瓦桑對數(shù)字貨幣的潛力寫過一系列有影響力的論文，影響了整個風險投資行業(yè)。

“區(qū)塊鏈是瀏覽器或操作系統(tǒng)出現(xiàn)以來最復(fù)雜的技術(shù)?！彼a充說，只有少數(shù)掌握各領(lǐng)域?qū)I(yè)知識的學(xué)者在討論，具體領(lǐng)域包括密碼學(xué)、博弈論、網(wǎng)絡(luò)、數(shù)據(jù)庫和網(wǎng)絡(luò)安全等。但他解釋說，數(shù)字貨幣有所不同，很多工程師都能造出，同樣可帶有區(qū)塊鏈的強大屬性，例如防篡改和不可破壞。資產(chǎn)證券化時提供了一種有效識別和分配所有權(quán)的新方法。

But recent acquisitions could help Coinbase be ready when that framework emerges. One of its recent hires is Emilie Choi, VP of corporate and business development, who presided over 40 acquisitions at LinkedIn. Since signing on in March, Choi has helped Coinbase snap up nearly a dozen small blockchain and financial firms that could help it provide a broader range of services. Still, for a company that likes to style itself as “the Google of crypto,” Coinbase is still waiting for an encore hit to its trading platform, along the lines of Google adding Gmail or Maps or YouTube to its core search service.

Right now, Coinbase’s most promising project, say Johnson and others, involves a new class of investments known as security tokens, which represent investable assets as tokens on a blockchain. Armstrong has spoken of building an alternative investment market around such tokens, run by Coinbase. Supporters say tokens could be used to convert assets that are relatively illiquid and expensive—privately held companies, for example, or art and other collectibles—into units that are easy to trade.

Trying to understand security tokens and their implications is much like trying to grok the Internet in 1994. Just as people were puzzled by terms like “browser” two decades ago or “app” a decade ago, the vocabulary of blockchain—including “tokens” and “wallets”—is still baffling to many. One of the industry’s better explainers is Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan, a charismatic 38-year-old with spiky hair, salt-and-pepper stubble and eyes that glisten. Srinivasan has written a series of influential essays on tokens’ potential to remake the venture capital industry.

“Blockchains are the most complicated piece of technology since browsers or operating systems,” he says, adding that only a handful of savants possess the expertise in a range of fields—including cryptography, game theory, networking, databases, and cyber-security—to wrangle them. But tokens are different, he explains. They can be built by a much broader class of engineers, while still taking advantage of blockchains’ powerful attributes, such as being tamper-proof and indestructible. And when used to securitize assets, they represent an efficient new way to recognize and distribute ownership.

風險資本家、也是PayPal的創(chuàng)始人兼首席運營官大衛(wèi)·薩克斯認為，7萬億美元的美國房地產(chǎn)市場具有高流動性且非常成熟，所以可通過數(shù)字貨幣細分和銷售。 “這就好像所有權(quán)從模擬系統(tǒng)變成數(shù)字系統(tǒng)。現(xiàn)在的契約或私人證券都是文件柜里的紙，數(shù)字貨幣可實現(xiàn)數(shù)字化?！彼_克斯說，他負責一家名叫Harbour的公司，該公司主要生成特定代碼確保數(shù)字貨幣遵守安全法律法規(guī)。房地產(chǎn)資產(chǎn)數(shù)字化已從理論走向現(xiàn)實。舉個例子，8月位于科羅拉多州阿斯彭的高檔瑞吉酒店老板宣布，將以數(shù)字貨幣形式出售酒店19%的股份。

財務(wù)顧問兼加密貨幣律師普萊斯頓·伯恩認為，通過簡化法規(guī)和記錄方式，目前占數(shù)十個不同文件的信息將整合到區(qū)塊鏈中，企業(yè)通過數(shù)字貨幣籌集資金更容易。數(shù)字貨幣還可降低對投資銀行和其他中介的依賴，降低與合并，收購以及發(fā)行股票或債券相關(guān)的成本。“Coinbase可充分利用各種優(yōu)勢，占據(jù)了有利地位，因為掌握著技術(shù)?！辈鞅硎尽！半S著科技創(chuàng)業(yè)公司侵蝕大銀行的業(yè)務(wù)，技術(shù)優(yōu)勢就能充分體現(xiàn)?！?/p>

當然，大銀行在業(yè)務(wù)被吞之前可能反手一擊。畢竟銀行掌握充裕的現(xiàn)金，而且擁有自己的技術(shù)人才，摩根大通和花旗集團等金融巨頭都在資助內(nèi)部的區(qū)塊鏈項目。Coinbase并未壟斷加密交易技術(shù)。Circle和Gemini等競爭對手也都在加緊搭建機構(gòu)交易平臺。

盡管如此，投資人對Coinbase仍然青眼有加。多家消息人士向《財富》證實，該公司即將獲得大規(guī)模融資。今年4月，Coinbase收購加密公司Earn.com時，有報道透露Coinbase對自身估值約為80億美元。該公司沒有確認，也并未否認。

至于更廣泛的加密貨幣革命，阿姆斯特朗從未放棄理想，仍在努力構(gòu)建獨立于銀行和政府的全球支付系統(tǒng)。為此，Coinbase正在構(gòu)建名為Coinbase Wallet的軟件，幫助普通投資者駕馭數(shù)字貨幣。阿姆斯特朗仍然比投資人更雄心勃勃。 “真心希望看到未來五年能實現(xiàn)加密技術(shù)用戶增長到十億人?！彼f。（財富中文網(wǎng)）

本文首發(fā)于2018年10月1日的《財富》雜志。 （此前版本中弗雷德·埃爾薩姆頭銜有誤）。

譯者：Charlie

審校：夏林

David Sacks, the venture capitalist and founding COO of PayPal, sees U.S. real estate— a $7 trillion market that is highly illiquid—as particularly ripe to be subdivided and sold via tokens. “It’s like going from an analog to a digital system of ownership. Today, a deed or private security is a piece of paper in a file cabinet somewhere. A token digitizes it,” said Sacks, who is backing a company called Harbor that creates code to ensure tokens comply with security laws. The real estate idea is already moving from theory to reality: The owners of the upscale St. Regis in Aspen, for example, announced in August that they would sell a 19% stake in the hotel in the form of tokens.

Preston Byrne, a financial consultant and cryptocurrency lawyer, argues that the security tokens will make it easier for businesses ?to raise capital, by streamlining regulatory compliance and record-keeping—as information that currently occupies dozens of disparate files gets consolidated onto blockchains. Tokens could also make companies less reliant on investment banks and other middlemen, slashing the costs associated with mergers, acquisitions, and the issuance of equity or bonds. “Coinbase is in a very good position to leverage all that because they’ve got the tech,” Byrne says. “This is where the rubber hits the road, as tech startups start eating big banks’ business.”

The big banks, of course, may eat before they get eaten. Flush with cash and stocked with their own tech talent, financial monoliths like JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup are funding their own blockchain projects. And Coinbase hardly has a monopoly on crypto- currency trading technology; rivals including Circle and Gemini are also jockeying to build institutional trading platforms.

Still, Coinbase remains an investor favorite. Multiple sources confirmed to Fortune that the company is in the final stages of a hefty funding round. In April, when Coinbase acquired crypto company Earn.com, reports leaked that Coinbase projected its own value at about $8 billion. The company has not confirmed that figure but doesn’t dispute it.

As for the broader cryptocurrency revolution, Armstrong hasn’t lost sight of the ideal of a global payment system independent of banks and governments. To this end, Coinbase is building software called Coinbase Wallet to help ordinary investors navigate the world of tokens. And Armstrong remains even more ambitious than his investors. “I really want to see crypto be used by a billion people in the next five years,” he says.

This article originally appeared in the October 1, 2018 issue of Fortune. (An earlier version of this article misidentified the title of Fred Ehrsam).