Coinbase Buys Earn.com, Names Balaji Srinivasan It’s First CTO

17.04.2018

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase said on Monday that it has acquired Earn.com, makers of a paid email product that lets people earn bitcoin for replying to emails or completing surveys.

Earn.com formerly operated as a bitcoin mining company under the name 21.co Last year it rebranded itself as a social network and is now regarded as one of the few practical blockchain applications to gain meaningful traction.

As part of the deal, Earn.com co-founder and CEO Balaji Srinivasan will join Coinbase as its first ever chief technology officer. Srinivasan will also take on an evangelist role for Coinbase and cryptocurrency at large, “educating the world and recruiting crypto-first talent to the company,” Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said in a blog post.

Srinivasan said ithat Earn.com is a cash-flow positive business with a multimillion dollar revenue run rate and “hundreds of thousands” of users. As part of Coinbase, Earn.com will continue to operate as a standalone business but will work to scale its model across Coinbase’s user base.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Srinivasan said in his post that “the total value of cash, cryptocurrency, and equity returned to our shareholders is now in excess of the capital invested in the company.” According to several sources close to the deal, it’s worth more than $120 million

This is Coinbase’s fifth acquisition to date — its most recent was a deal to buy Cipher Browser last week

Found a typo? Highlight text and press CTRL+ENTER

Subscribe to our Newsletter

Tags: acquisitions, Coinbase, Earn.com