Crypto.com is a cryptocurrency exchange company based in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

. As of May 2022, the company reportedly had 50 million customers and 4,000 employees. The exchange issues a token, Cronos.

History

The company was initially founded in Hong Kong by Bobby Bao,

Gary Or Gary may refer to: * Gary (given name), a common masculine given name, including a list of people and fictional characters with the name * Gary, Indiana, the largest city named Gary Places ;Iran * Gary, Iran, Sistan and Baluchestan Province ;U ...

Kris Marszalek The kris, or ''keris'' in the Indonesian language, is an asymmetrical dagger with distinctive blade-patterning achieved through alternating laminations of iron and nickelous iron (''pamor''). Of Javanese origin, the kris is famous for its disti ...

, and Rafael Melo in 2016 as "Monaco". In 2018, the company was renamed as Crypto.com following a purchase of a domain owned by

cryptography Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adve ...

researcher and professor

Matt Blaze Matt may refer to: *Matt (name), people with the given name ''Matt'' or Matthew, meaning "gift from God", or the surname Matt *In British English, of a surface: having a non-glossy finish, see gloss (material appearance) *Matt, Switzerland, a mu ...

. Domain sellers valued the domain at US$5–10 million. Crypto.com is operated by Foris DAX Asia, a Singapore-based company that's a subsidiary of Foris DAX MT (Malta) Limited. The company which had 10 million users in February 2021, reported more than 50 million active users as of May 2022. In January 2022, Crypto.com was the victim of a hack totaling US$15 million in stolen

Ether In organic chemistry, ethers are a class of compounds that contain an ether group—an oxygen atom connected to two alkyl or aryl groups. They have the general formula , where R and R′ represent the alkyl or aryl groups. Ethers can again b ...

. After some users reported suspicious activity on their accounts, the company paused withdrawals. Withdrawal services were later restored alongside a statement from the company that no customer funds were lost. On August 18, 2022, it was reported that Crypto.com had been quietly letting go of hundreds of employees, beyond its initial 5% layoff in June, due to the downturn in the cryptocurrency market. By October 10, 2022, it was reported that Crypto.com had laid off over 2,000 employees (reportedly 30% to 40% of their staff) since May, due to the cryptocurrency market downturn. In November 2022, the exchange's token, Cronos, lost approximately $1 billion in value. The decline was caused in part due to concerns after the collapse of

FTX FTX Trading Ltd., commonly known as FTX (short for "Futures Exchange") is a bankrupt company that formerly operated a cryptocurrency exchange and crypto hedge fund. The exchange was founded in 2019 and, at its peak in July 2021, had over one mi ...

, whose executive team was revealed to have used its native token, FTT, to prop up the balance sheet of a sister company and to have allegedly engaged in other fraudulent behaviors. On 14 November, Marszalek, the firm's CEO, assured users that the exchange was functioning as normal.

Products

Crypto.com services include an app, exchange, wallet and NFT marketplace. In April 2021, Crypto.com partnered with ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...

'' to accept cryptocurrency for subscriptions. In May 2022, they partnered with

Shopify Shopify Inc. is a Canadian multinational e-commerce company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario. Shopify is the name of its proprietary e-commerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. The Shopify platform offers online ret ...

to allow businesses which use the e-commerce platform to accept payments in cryptocurrency.

Promotional activities

Crypto.com signed actor

Matt Damon Matthew Paige Damon (; born October 8, 1970) is an American actor, film producer, and screenwriter. Ranked among '' Forbes'' most bankable stars, the films in which he has appeared have collectively earned over $3.88 billion at the North Amer ...

to serve as Crypto.com's brand ambassador in October 2021. In November 2021, the company acquired the naming rights to Los Angeles's Staples Center, renaming it Crypto.com Arena in a 20-year deal reported to be valued at US$700 million. In early 2022, the company announced a partnership with the LeBron James Family Foundation to provide educational resources focused on blockchain-related topics to students of the I Promise School in Akron, Ohio.

Regulations

Asia

The Monetary Authority of Singapore announced that it had given in-principle approval to the company for a Major Payment Institution License, allowing it to provide digital payment token services in the country. In August 2022, Crypto.com acquired two South Korean startups - the payment service provider PnLink Co., Ltd and the virtual asset service provider OK-BIT Co., Ltd. With these acquisitions, the company secured registration licenses to provide financial services under South Korea's electronic financial transaction act and as a virtual asset service provider.

Europe

The company received approval from the United Kingdom's

Financial Conduct Authority The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is a financial regulatory body in the United Kingdom, but operates independently of the UK Government, and is financed by charging fees to members of the financial services industry. The FCA regulates financ ...

to be registered as a crypto asset service provider in August 2022. Crypto.com has received an electronic money institution (EMI) license in Malta. And, the Malta Financial Services Authority granted it an electronic money institution license and a Class 3 Virtual Financial Assets License. It received regulatory approval to operate in Cyprus from the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission. In September 2022, Crypto.com received the approval of the French authorities, and a month later announced plans to establish a European headquarters in Paris and invest 150 million euros in the French division.

References

{{Cryptocurrencies Cryptocurrencies Online companies of Singapore Internet properties established in 2016 Technology companies established in 2016 2016 establishments in Singapore Bitcoin exchanges Digital currency exchanges