Former Senior Director of Operations, Lucas Matheson, has left Shopify to join cryptocurrency exchange firm Coinbase. The Ottawa-based executive will now act as Country Director, Canada, at Coinbase. Announcing the appointment on Thursday, Coinbase admitted to having signed an enhanced Pre-Registration Undertaking with that country’s regulators.
“To kick off our efforts in Canada, a key market in our Go Deep roadmap, we have hired Lucas Matheson as the Country Director, based in Ottawa,” Coinbase said in a blog post.
He (Lucas Matheson) is passionate about the potential of cryptocurrencies to transform the financial landscape and is excited to help make crypto more accessible in Canada and be a part of Coinbase’s mission to increase economic freedom.
Coinbase
What is Go Deep Roadmap?
The company’s Go Deep roadmap is an attempt at global expansion with a broad and deep approach to its mission to bring economic freedom to every individual and business across the globe. For this, Coinbase opened leadership roles in different parts of the world to create a strong global presence.
In praise of Matheson, Coinbase stated: “Lucas brings a wealth of experience from his time at Shopify and with leading financial institutions in Canada. He is passionate about the potential of cryptocurrencies to transform the financial landscape and is excited to help make crypto more accessible in Canada and be a part of Coinbase’s mission to increase economic freedom”.
Matheson joined Shopify as Director of Operations in July 2016. He was promoted to Director of Growth in November 2017, Director of Strategic Expansion in June 2018, Senior Director of Corporate FP&A, Acceleration Finance in September 2020 and Senior Director of Operations in January 2021.
After more than six years of working with the Canadian e-commerce platform, Matheson joined Coinbase in its mission to create economic freedom. With over 20 years of experience, Matheson earlier worked for Pinshape, Capital Power Corporation, Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo), Deloitte, TD Commercial Bank and TD Bank Group.
Coinbase’s Commitment
Coinbase further mentioned in its blog its commitment to upgrading the financial system to create equal opportunities for all. The American firm is planning to launch trusted products for the expansion of cryptocurrency’s global utility and adoption. With its base in the United States, Coinbase has committed to bringing the complete benefits of cryptocurrencies to all international markets.
Coinbase didn’t hesitate to call Canada a “key international market” as part of its International Expansion strategy.
“We are investing significant resources in local Canadian innovation. We have built out a tech hub in Canada with over 200 engineers who are supporting our global product portfolio.”
“Additionally, our global leadership team will be making frequent trips to Canada to engage with regulators, partners, and the community, to better understand the Canadian market and its unique needs,” the statement read further.
According to Coinbase, the Pre-Registration Undertaking (PRU) was signed by Coinbase Canada on March 24. “We continue to work with policymakers on a strong crypto regulatory framework for Canadians. We applaud the Canadian securities regulators’ efforts to bring clarity to the industry and look forward to continuing our collaboration with them on regulation that protects consumers while embracing innovation.”
“Our goal is to provide the most trusted and secure platform for Canadians to buy, sell, and trade crypto and we are grateful for a thoughtful and responsible regulatory review process,” Coinbase said in its statement.
About Pre-Registration Undertaking
PRU is a recent commitment that ensures that crypto platforms work as per regulations set by the authorities. The crypto industry in Canada has a lot of potentials but it seeks collaboration for growth. Talking about the PRU commitment, Coinbase said: “Moving forward, it is essential for our industry to work closely together to help define regulation, engage in constructive dialogue with government officials and policy makers, and work to strengthen the narrative around crypto in Canada to promote its widespread understanding and adoption.”
Coinbase has placed its bets on Canadians who would be keen to avail the benefits of cryptocurrencies. “We are excited to be able to provide them with a trusted platform to do so. With our expansion into Canada, we are one step closer to realizing our mission of creating an open financial system and increasing economic freedom across the globe,” Coinbase stated.
The current regulatory regime is difficult for exchange companies to do business in Canada. Another United States–based cryptocurrency exchange company, Kraken, has announced its expansion in Canada. Companies like OKX, Blockchain.com and Deribit have stopped Canada operations after the arrival of new regulations.
Shopify’s Bet
Shopify is also betting high on the growth and expansion of cryptocurrency, blockchain and token-gated commerce. In February, a designer at the Shopify blockchain team, who goes by the Twitter handle ‘cordellsy.eth’, announced that the Canadian company has launched “some fresh tools to help you build token-gating apps for Shopify merchants”.
The Shopify designer also shared github links to easy-to-use components, new docs and a “demo app to fork or help you follow along”. He also shared the link to blockchain.shopify.dev, which explains what Build for Blockchain Commerce actually stands for. Once open, the dynamic Shopify page constantly replaces blockchain with words like token powered and collaborative to explain Shopify’s new bet on commerce.
On shopify.dev, the company describes ‘Build for blockchain-enabled commerce’ by saying: “Discover UI components, robust APIs to develop your next token-powered app, drive loyalty, foster brand collabs, empower communities, and more. In this guide we’ll cover some common terms you’ll encounter, the major categories of blockchain apps on Shopify today, as well as some tools and resources that we’ve developed to help you build better blockchain apps.”
Other Launches
Earlier in January, Shopify welcomed Venly with its NFT Minter (Avalanche) and NFT Minter (Polygon) app to allow merchants to buy and sell NFTs on Shopify without any technical knowledge of the Blockchain.
Last year in September, Verisart joined the Shopify App Store to allow merchants to mint and sell NFTs along with other products featured on their online stores. The only condition is that they must belong to art-related commerce and must have “.art” in their domains.
In July, Shopify partnered with the music commerce app Single to make the most of its NFT-based functionality. Single works on Solana blockchain technology to help Shopify merchants use NFT functionality to upload music and video files. NFT is a financial security system that helps store digital data in a blockchain. This data can then be sold, traded or transferred by the owner.
Shopify CEO And Coinbase
Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke is also confident of the growth of Coinbase as he owned 65,815 shares of Coinbase worth $4.28 million by October 2022. Having joined the Coinbase board in February 2022, the Shopify CEO now acts as the director of Coinbase.
READ MORE: Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke Bought $3M Coinbase Stock in 2 Months
However, Lutke’s repeated investments in Coinbase are surprising for insiders, who are constantly selling Coinbase stock. Unlike conventional initial public offering (IPO), Coinbase cannot add new shares for trading on the Nasdaq as its liquidity must come from existing shareholders. While Lutke scooped up more Coinbase stock in the recent past, early investors like Andreessen Horowitz and Fred Wilson have parted ways with Coinbase.
Established in June 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam, Coinbase Global, Inc was founded in San Francisco, California in the United States. The company offers financial infrastructure and technology for the crypto economy in the US and across the globe.
