The biggest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase, has announced it will close its San Francisco offices for good.
The company — founded in June 2012 by former Airbnb engineer Brian Armstrong — has had a speedy rise to the top in the nascent crypto industry, though its practices have also sometimes stoked controversy.
Data unearthed by the New York Times last year revealed that women at Coinbase were paid an average of 8% less than men at comparable jobs and ranks within the company, and Black employees were paid 7% less than those in similar roles.
The company received internal backlash last summer after CEO Armstrong refused to speak out on the racial justice movement citing Coinbase’s mission of “economic freedom” and its “apolitical” culture.
Despite these issues, the company is now a household name, with about 56 million users trading cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum on the app. The company went public in April this year, opening at $381.
But like cryptocurrency itself, Coinbase’s 1,200 employees are now decentralizing, and the company will no longer have a physical headquarters at all.
The announcement on Twitter on Wednesday that the company’s Market Street offices would shutter next year wasn’t a total shock. A year ago, Armstrong announced the company would be “remote first” and not have a specific headquarters.
Coinbase say they will instead offer some smaller offices elsewhere, but didn’t give details. “Closing our SF office is an important step in ensuring no office becomes an unofficial HQ and will mean career outcomes are based on capability and output rather than location,” the company said in a statement. “Instead, we will offer a network of smaller offices for our employees to work from if they choose to.”