Outspoken Coinbase CEO said that he and his team see bear markets such as the one cryptocurrencies are currently experiencing as an ““opportunity to keep making progress while everyone else gets distracted.”

Staying true to his word, Armstrong’s Coinbase is setting its sights on Wall Street in a new expansion move aimed at growing the staff at its newly opened New York City office. According to a new report, Coinbase is planning on hiring over 100 new employees for its New York City office over the next year, increasing the head count substantially over the current 20 employees working at the location.

Coinbase claims that despite the decline in cryptocurrency prices, institutional demand hasn’t waned. In fact it was “exactly the opposite,” said Adam White, Coinbase’s General Manager of Coinbase Institutional. He added:

"When we saw the market begin to correct, which we all expected, institutions didn't lose interest… They look at it as an opportunity to enter when things are not too frothy.”

The report says that many of Coinbase’s NY staff members have been poached from big Wall Street giants such as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and traditional banking firms like Citigroup and Barclays.

White says that’s all part of the plan. "We have to create a bridge between financial services and technology," he explained. "In order to do that, we need to pull from some of the best and brightest minds that have worked their whole careers in other kinds of traditional financial firms."

The new hiring spree is yet another aggressive expansion move by the powerhouse cryptocurrency firm. In recent months, Coinbase has made a number of acquisitions to bolster its product offerings and to become a registered broker-dealer. Coinbase also launched its cryptocurrency custody product for institutional investors. A proper custody product is among key reasons cited for institutional investors hesitating to enter the cryptocurrency market as risks associated with the new asset class remain high.