Leaders Series: Linda Xie at Coinbase

Issue 29 — May 8th, 2017

This series highlights the unique stories of leaders from various communities across the growing digital currency and blockchain technology industry. The goal is to showcase the fantastic work these leaders are all doing at different levels of their respective organizations, and to encourage more people at all stages of their careers join the revolution we’re creating, together!

Linda Xie is a Product Manager at Coinbase

She’s spent the last 3 years working on bitcoin and blockchain projects.

How did you get into bitcoin? How did you find your role at Coinbase?

I first heard about Bitcoin from a classmate at UC San Diego. We co-wrote a paper on Bitcoin for our Economics class in 2011. I thought that the concept was interesting and that the technology was powerful but I wasn’t sure Bitcoin would take off because, at the time, not many people knew about it, there were few legitimate use cases, and there was no easy place to buy or store it.

When Coinbase onboarded Overstock as a merchant in early 2014, I thought that was a game changer. Coinbase was helping Bitcoin become mainstream, legitimate, and easy to use. Shortly after, I wrote to Coinbase on the need for a decentralized digital currency and how much I believed in what they were doing. My background was in finance and while they didn’t have any open finance roles I was willing to learn and fill any position they needed because I wanted to be part of their team.

Coinbase needed a regulatory compliance investigator so I joined as one in June 2014. I learned about the regulatory landscape for digital currencies and worked on bitcoin investigations. There was a significant amount of manual work on the compliance team so I also collaborated with the engineers to automate processes and systems. Through the experience I transitioned into the product manager of the internal tools team where we automate tools for all of the internal teams at Coinbase. Our strategy is to scale through automation wherever possible.

What did you do before you got into this?

I was a portfolio risk analyst at AIG in New York. I joined shortly after the financial crisis. It was a unique experience to work on reducing the risk of a company that clearly played a pivotal role in the financial system. My daily work involved data analysis and statistical programming. Through working in finance I saw first hand how inefficient financial systems can be and it further strengthened my interest in cryptocurrencies.

What’s been the most interesting experience you’ve had in your role at Coinbase thus far?

The most interesting experience has been working with law enforcement on cybercrime cases and teaching them about bitcoin. I used to get early morning calls from unknown numbers and when I would pick up it would be a law enforcement agent across the country who wanted me to explain to them how the blockchain works. It’s been interesting watching the number of experts and tools around bitcoin investigations grow within the past 3 years.

What problem is your company solving? Why do you feel passionate about this?

Coinbase is the most trusted and easy to use platform for digital currency. This goes back to the problem I observed in 2011 when there was no easy way to buy bitcoin and no place I felt comfortable storing my funds. In order for digital currencies to reach mass adoption there needs to be a solution to these problems and I think Coinbase is the one to do that. I’m passionate about Coinbase’s mission to create an open financial system for the world because I believe digital currencies have the potential to disrupt multiple inefficient industries and reduce inequality.

I’ve also been advising 0x, an Ethereum project that is creating an open protocol for decentralized exchange of Ethereum-based assets. There are several decentralized exchanges being created on Ethereum but they all have their own proprietary tech and fragmented liquidity pools. As an open protocol, 0x is creating free and publicly accessible infrastructure that will allow people to trade without a middleman. This will become increasingly important as more Ethereum tokens are created that will need a method of exchange.

As you think about the growth of bitcoin, what is one thing you think the business ecosystem or community is missing today?

We face a major hurdle in getting people outside of the industry to understand digital currencies and why they might want to use them. While many people have heard about Bitcoin, the media typically reports on headlines such as the price and negative events rather than the technology and its massive potential. For digital currencies to see mass adoption there needs to be a larger supply of accessible educational materials. I’ve been trying to help by writing beginner’s guides on digital currencies such as Ethereum, Monero, and Litecoin but my reach only goes so far. I’d like to see more people and companies sharing their knowledge by giving talks, writing posts, and creating videos that may be easily understood by anyone, not just other people in the industry.

As you think about this industry, what do you think will happen in the short term that will blow people’s minds?

I think what will blow people’s minds in the short term is the number of legitimate cryptocurrencies in the space. We’re no longer in a world where Bitcoin is the only major digital currency. There’s room for multiple digital currencies to coexist with Bitcoin for different use cases like smart contracts, privacy, speed, and governance.

What do you think will be disappointing?

I think this will lead to some people who were heavily invested in only Bitcoin to be disappointed. All of this innovation will eventually lead consumers to using multiple digital currencies in their applications and daily lives without even realizing it.

What changes do you think this will accelerate in our world?

I fully believe in Coinbase’s vision that digital currencies will accelerate innovation, efficiency, and equality of opportunity in the world and I’m excited to be part of a team making it happen.

Connect with Linda on LinkedIn!

Note: Curious to learn more about women at Coinbase? You can also read about Linda’s colleague, Kristen, here