Episode #89: Sleeping Giant Awakens? Coinbase's 2024 Brazil Strategy with Fábio Plein

Brazil Crypto Report

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Episode #89: Sleeping Giant Awakens? Coinbase's 2024 Brazil Strategy with Fábio Plein

Coinbase's head of Americas joins to discuss the exchange's go-to market strategy in Brazil

Aaron Stanley

Feb 20, 2024

Transcript

No transcript...

Olá pessoal!

For today’s episode I’m joined by Fábio Plein, Managing Director for the Americas at Coinbase, to learn about the juggernaut exchange’s go-to-market and expansion plans in Brazil.

Coinbase is obviously a company that needs no introduction. It is the largest crypto exchange by volume in the United States, and among the largest in the world alongside the likes of Binance, Bybit and OKX.

Coinbase has been strategically building out its presence and operations behind the scenes in Brazil for the past year, and now has big plans to ramp up in 2024. Can Coinbase replicate the successes its seen in other markets in Brazil this year? This will be a key theme to watch.

Here are some key highlights from our chat:

Coinbase launched its retail app and operations in Brazil last year. The app brings the same products and experience accessible in the US and other parts of the world, such as access to 250+ assets, staking rewards, etc.
Brazil is a strategic focus market for Coinbase in reaching its ambitious goal of getting 1 billion people to adopt crypto globally. Factors like a tech-savvy population of over 200 million and high existing crypto adoption levels make Brazil’s potential enormous.
Coinbase’s go-to-market strategy revolves around having a trustworthy and easy to use product with strong security, localization efforts and constant feedback-driven product enhancements. Organic growth through word-of-mouth about the quality experience will be higher priority in the early days than big-spend marketing pushes.
While retail is the main focus currently, Coinbase also has a budding institutional business in Brazil serving banks, fintechs, and investment funds with trading tools and crypto-as-a-service offerings.
Coinbase has been actively engaged with regulators like Brazil’s Central Bank, submitting public consultation feedback and advocating for policies like assets segregation that balance user security with technological innovation.
Coinbase now has around 35 employees based in Brazil spanning engineering, product, marketing, compliance/legal, and operations. There are currently job openings for a Brazil-based expansion manager, marketing manager, engineer and data scientist.
Coinbase intends to use Base, its novel Layer 2 blockchain, as a means to engage with and empower Brazil’s developer community.
The priority for the next 12 months is to continually expand Coinbase’s monthly transacting user base in the country, with the end goal of becoming the the preferred crypto-native exchange for Brazilians.