Tuesday, October 15, 2021

Coinbase and SFOX Make Y Combinator Top 100 List

It looks like no matter how hard crypto and blockchain try they can’t please everybody. The Y Combinator’s top 100 list of startups is out, and to our disappointment and dismay, only two cryptocurrency and blockchain businesses have made the cut.

Y Combinator Only Chooses Two?

The two businesses to earn spots on the list were Coinbase, the popular U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange (which came in at number five), and SFOX, a crypto dealer for institutional and professional traders. Ah, those institutional players are coming back into the fray once again.

It seems like they’re accounting for many of the decisions being made today in the crypto space. If a company can sway them to join their ranks or somehow get involved, that’s what makes all the difference. Bakkt is the perfect example. Ever since the news sprung out that the platform has managed to attract more attention and has traded nearly $2 million in bitcoin futures contracts, the space was able to make something of a rebound.

Unfortunately, that rebound didn’t last long. Despite spiking to nearly $8,600 recently, bitcoin is now trading back down at the $8,100 mark, and several other top 20 cryptocurrencies are following suit and traversing through red territory.

Y Combinator is a company that often seems to fund the companies it lists. That raises a serious amount of questions, “is this ethical?” being the first one. Also, why is it looking to avoid funding both crypto and blockchain businesses so much?

To be fair, the company is probably trying to protect itself. As we’ve witnessed in the past two weeks alone, cryptocurrency remains as volatile as ever, and just as vulnerable to outside market influence. The two companies it does seem to be investing in have proven themselves compatible and legitimate, with Coinbase cooperating with U.S. regulators and serving as arguably the largest crypto exchange in the U.S.

SFOX has the guarantee of institutional backers, so there’s a good chance it will always stay upright. Among some of the other companies to garner spots on the list were online payment platform Stripe and Airbnb.

Things Are Going Too Slow

Akbar Thobhani, chief executive of SFOX, explains in a statement:

Over the past five years, crypto markets have experienced many downturns. The market is still at a very early stage of adoption and many of the applications are still pre-product market fit. We will continue to see growth in crypto applications and many of these apps will be built on open platforms like bitcoin and Ethereum.

On Y Combinator’s list in 2018, Coinbase and SFOX were again the only two crypto-based companies to garner spots. This suggests that not much has changed with them in the past 12 months, and perhaps the recognition of blockchain enterprises is coming at a significantly slower pace than we all thought.

The post Coinbase and SFOX Make Y Combinator Top 100 List appeared first on Live Bitcoin News.



Coinbase and SFOX Make Y Combinator Top 100 List

Cryptocurrency is a digital currency that uses encryption (cryptography) to regulate the generation of currency and verify the transfer of funds, independently of a central bank. Cryptography is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of third party adversaries.


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