As crypto proponents look to onboard a new generation of users, one of the major consumer onramps has been a host of consumer wallet apps with slick interfaces.
Today, Coinbase announced that it is bringing on the team from BRD — a crypto wallet startup that first launched its mobile wallet back in 2014. While the team is transitioning over to Coinbase, BRD’s co-founders say nothing will be changing for BRD users for the time being, and that their wallets will continue to operate normally and that user “funds are safe and secure.”
The wallet startup was an early player in the mobile crypto wallet space that started as a place for users to store bitcoin, but grew to support a wide network of tokens and the ability to buy, sell and swap cryptocurrencies thanks to partnerships with exchanges. The startup claims to have more than 10 million users.
“The team brings deep expertise in self-custody for crypto wallets, which will help Wallet enable more people to safely and securely access the decentralized world of crypto,” a tweet from the Coinbase Wallet Twitter account reads.
BRD raised a hefty amount of venture capital funding, banking nearly $55 million in venture funding from firms like SBI Crypto Investment and East Ventures.
Coinbase and BRD did not reveal terms of the acqui-hire.
Co-founder Adam Traidman and Aaron Voisine note that they plan to build out a “migration path” for users to transfer their wallet contents to the Coinbase Wallet app but that it will be entirely optional for users.