Block, Inc. is an American technology company that offers financial services to both consumers and small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Founded in 2009 by Jack Dorsey, it is the U.S. market leader in point-of-sale systems. As of 2023, Block serves 56 million users and 4 million businesses, processing payments worth $228 billion annually.
Coinbase Global, Inc., branded Coinbase, is an American publicly traded company that operates a cryptocurrency exchange platform. Coinbase is a distributed company; all employees operate via remote work. It is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States in terms of trading volume. The company was founded in 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam. In May 2020, Coinbase announced it would shut its San Francisco, California, headquarters and change operations to remote-first, part of a wave of several major tech companies closing headquarters in San Francisco in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Blockchain.com is a cryptocurrency financial services company. The company began as the first Bitcoin blockchain explorer in 2011 and later created a cryptocurrency wallet that accounted for 28% of bitcoin transactions between 2012 and 2020. It also operates a cryptocurrency exchange and provides institutional markets lending business and data, charts, and analytics.
Circle is a peer-to-peer payments technology company that now manages stablecoin USDC, a cryptocurrency the value of which is pegged to the U.S. dollar. It was founded by Jeremy Allaire and Sean Neville in October 2013. Circle is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. USDC, the second largest stablecoin worldwide, is designed to hold at or near a stable price of $1. The majority of its stablecoin collateral is held in short-term U.S. government securities.
Robinhood Markets, Inc. is an American financial services company headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The company provides an electronic trading platform accessible via mobile app that facilitates commission-free trades of stocks, exchange-traded funds and cryptocurrency, as well as cryptocurrency wallets, credit cards and other banking services. The company's revenue comes from transaction-based revenues, net interest income, and subscription fees. The company has 24.2 million funded customers, 11.8 million monthly active users, and $140 billion in assets under custody.
Xapo Bank is a private bank headquartered in Gibraltar, which operates globally and is licensed as a virtual asset currency provider by the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission. As of 2023, the company offers stock market trading to its clients in Europe.
Kraken is a United States–based cryptocurrency exchange, founded in 2011. It was one of the first bitcoin exchanges to be listed on Bloomberg Terminal and was valued at US$3 billion in January 2024. The company has been the subject of several regulatory investigations since 2018, and has agreed to cumulative fines of over $30 million.
Digital Currency Group (DCG) is a venture capital company focusing on the digital currency market. It is located in Stamford, Connecticut. The company has the subsidiaries Foundry, Genesis, Grayscale Investments, and Luno. It also formerly owned CoinDesk.
A cryptocurrency wallet is a device, physical medium, program or an online service which stores the public and/or private keys for cryptocurrency transactions. In addition to this basic function of storing the keys, a cryptocurrency wallet more often offers the functionality of encrypting and/or signing information. Signing can for example result in executing a smart contract, a cryptocurrency transaction, identification, or legally signing a 'document'.
Bitcoin.com is a bitcoin and cryptocurrency wallet developer and news & education portal.
Cash App is a digital wallet service available in the U.S. Launched by Block, Inc. in 2013, it offers sending and receiving money, a savings account, a debit card, investing in stocks or bitcoin, personal loans, and tax filing. As of 2024, Cash App reports 57 million monthly users and $14.7 billion in annual revenues.
Cryptocurrency and crime describe notable examples of cybercrime related to theft of cryptocurrencies and some methods or security vulnerabilities commonly exploited. Cryptojacking is a form of cybercrime specific to cryptocurrencies that have been used on websites to hijack a victim's resources and use them for hashing and mining cryptocurrency.
A SIM swap scam is a type of account takeover fraud that generally targets a weakness in two-factor authentication and two-step verification in which the second factor or step is a text message (SMS) or call placed to a mobile telephone.
MetaMask is a software cryptocurrency wallet used to interact with the Ethereum blockchain. It allows users to access their Ethereum wallet through a browser extension or mobile app, which can then be used to interact with decentralized applications. MetaMask is developed by Consensys, a blockchain software company focusing on Ethereum-based tools and infrastructure.
Solana is a blockchain platform which uses a proof-of-stake mechanism to provide smart contract functionality. Its native cryptocurrency is SOL.
Bitpanda GmbH is an Austrian company headquartered in Vienna. Bitpanda's mobile app provides access to its trading platform, which provides a cryptocurrency exchange, commodities and securities trading, and ETFs. In 2021, Bitpanda achieved a valuation of over four billion US dollars and had nearly 2.7 million customers and almost 500 employees.
HTC Exodus 1 is an entry level 2019 HTC U series engineering based Android OS powered blockchain-secured "hardware cryptocurrency wallet" mobile phone developed by HTC Corporation. Its default web browser application is Brave and it runs DApps through a partnership with Opera.
Square is a point-of-sale system designed for small and medium-sized businesses. Launched in 2009 by Block, Inc., it allows merchants to accept card payments and manage various business operations. As of 2023, Square leads the U.S. market in point-of-sale systems, serving 4mn clients and processing $210bn annually.
The Bitfinex cryptocurrency exchange was hacked in August 2016. 119,756 bitcoin, worth about US$72 million at the time, was stolen.
MoonPay is a multinational financial technology company involved in the transfer of cryptocurrency. Founded by Ivan Soto-Wright and Victor Faramond in 2019, the company is based in Miami and provides payment infrastructure for cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to be bought and sold with fiat currencies.
