On October 4, Coinbase, America’s largest crypto exchange, announced in a blog post the expansion of its services to retail customers in Australia, making it easier to buy, sell, and trade digital assets.

The vice president of international and business development at Coinbase, Nana Murugesan said building during bear markets has “paid off big time during the bull run” and that he’s confident in what he sees in the local market. 

Murugesan further explains, the “baseline signals” for example the local awareness of individuals & crypto who view it as the future of finance, are somewhat on par or even better in Australia contrasted with the US and different business sectors, “Australia definitely punches way, way over its weight in the APAC region, certainly at a global level too. And from a revenue contribution standpoint, I feel pretty good about what it’s going to do.” 

Murugesan made sense of that it began with building a localized infrastructure, integrating a local entity (Coinbase Australia Pty Ltd), and getting registration to furnish digital currency exchange services with the country's financial intelligence agency called the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre. 

“We’ve been very impressed with the open door that we’ve received in Canberra and with different policymakers,” Murugesan said, adding the exchange has received “tough questions” in regards to its platform and token listings, “Given the token mapping exercise that’s going on, there are a lot of technical questions that we are getting from the Treasury and other departments. […] Deep technical questions is another thing that we are seeing in Australia at a level deeper than some other countries.” 

At first, Coinbase is giving Australian crypto traders new quick payments for local bank accounts, access to its advanced trading platform, and 24/7 chat support, which will open the way for the organization to launch its full range of development and institutional products.