1. Robinhood

They already have a cult following due to their zero fee equity trading. What started with a single post on reddit five years ago spawned a beast. After announcing plans to provide cryptoasset trading, over one million customers signed up for early access.

Why it matters- zero fee cryptoasset trading. Robinhood plans for the service to be a loss leader and they have deep enough pockets after their recent Series D to sustain themselves over a significant time horizon. They also have a highly engaged customer base already trading (equities) on their platform.

2. eToro

No stranger to cryptoassets, Yoni Assai (CEO of eToro) co-authored the whitepaper for Colored Coins along with Vitalik Buterin back in 2011. Additionally, eToro was offering customers in select markets bitcoin CFD’s as early as 2014.

Why it matters- 1) Social trading. eToro has successfully integrated the same dopamine-producing principles of social media (such as trending, commenting, and sharing) with a crypto-trading platform (no disrespect to the Poloniex trollbox [R.I.P]). Given the significance of Twitter and Reddit in the crypto information sphere, this becomes an attractive feature for the casual crypto trader. 2) The ability to mimic the trades of other traders through their ‘CopyTrader’ feature. And with 10 assets to initially be available, it’s one of the widest token offerings across it’s competitors.

“from real estate to metals, commodities, stocks, intellectual property, and brand equity — will be tokenized over the next decade.” -Guy Hirsch (eToro U.S. Managing Director)

3. Circle

Billed as a ‘global crypto finance company’, Circle currently handles over US$2bn in OTC trading each month and offers a number of connected products to keep users in their system- payments (Circle Pay), investments (Circle Invest) and trading (Poloniex & Circle Trade). Backed by investors such as Goldman Sachs and Baidu, it’s fair to assume they have access to a unique calibre of partners, political influence and resources to ensure their continued growth.

Why it matters- They hold a BitLicense to operate in NY state, one of only 5 firms (including Coinbase) to do so. Their recent pivot and relaunch means they have immediate access to the state’s 20 million residents, residents that have been largely under-served for several years as a result of many crypto-related businesses packing up shop for more welcoming regulatory pastures. Circle also recently announced their own stable coin (USDC) funded by a $110m cheque from Jihan Wu & Bitmain (crypto-mining chip manufacturer and operators of mining pool- Antpool). All stable coins so far have had their share of challenges and we’ll have to monitor the USDC to see how it fairs over the long-term. In terms of differentiation, Circle offers a ‘buy-the-market’ feature, allowing users to instantly purchase a custom-weighted index of the seven cryptoassets it offers.

4. Square

After taking independent goods and services businesses by storm with their Square Card Reader and boasting seven million U.S. customers, the portable PoS terminal provider launched Square Cash in 2015 to facilitate centralised peer-to-peer payments. This existing business client base will potentially be able to accept bitcoin as a payment method with little disruption to service.

Why it matters- Jack Dorsey has pretty ambitious plans for helping to elevate bitcoin to the native currency of the internet. Given his tenure as CEO of Twitter, it could be argued that he has a unique insight into how networks may evolve in the future to facilitate value transfers.

5. Coinbase

Last but not least, Coinbase has evolved in leaps and bounds in recent times. Ironing out many of the operational bottlenecks that plagued it last year and making aggressive plays for talent that will help drive a cohesive strategy over decades, the company has grand plans.

Why it matters- The recent slew of announcements- the re-brand and re-design of their trading platform GDAX as Coinbase Pro, the upgrades of Coinbase Vault to allow for multisig wallets, the recent acquisitions of Paradex.io and Earn.com- all point to a future where Coinbase play a pivotal role in shaping the rapid evolution of the cryptoasset ecosystem.

“Very simply said, we want to be the Google of crypto.” -Adam White (VP & GM)

So that’s where we are at. Where we go from here is anyone’s guess but you can be sure that next time the U.S. retail population decides to enter all the crypto markets en masse, the infrastructure, tools and services will largely be in place with attractive incentives and customer retention front of mind.

If you’d like to view the complete set of slides, you can do so here.