Coinbase, an American cryptocurrency exchange, has launched the Coinbase Institute, a global crypto-native think tank.
The exchange selected Hermine Wong as the Director of the Institute. Wong is a former US government official who worked with the Executive Office of the President’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA).
Additionally, Coinbase announced a partnership with the University of Michigan (UMich) to kick off the first comprehensive annual survey of U.S. households’ adoption of and sentiments toward crypto.
Moreover, the American company unveiled two other initiatives: the Coinbase Primers, which will “break through the noise to provide clear explanations of key issues along with the latest numbers and analysis,” and the Coinbase Institute Monthly Insights Report on digital asset markets.
“Our mission is to accelerate rigorous, novel research, and to bring together the best minds across disciplines to fuel progress on decentralization, web3 and the future of finance,” the exchange wrote in a blog post announcing the launch of the institute.
Coinbase said the work of the research arm will cut across many disciplines and provide expert analysis and insights about what is happening in the global crypto economy.
The new launches follow last month's introduction of Coinbase Intelligence, a growing suite of products the firm said it developed in an effort to address the compliance needs of financial institutions, crypto businesses, law enforcement agencies and corporations new to crypto.
The Four Pillars
According to Coinbase, the new think tank will be anchored on “four core pillars of work.”
These are to conduct and publish rigorous cutting-edge crypto and web3 research, as well as convene collaborative discussions with thought leaders, academics, policymakers and the crypto community.
In addition, the institute has been tasked with forging partnerships with academic institutions and think tanks to accelerate early-stage research and technical innovation.
Further, the think tank is expected to build an interdisciplinary in-house team to advance public knowledge and awareness of crypto and web3.
Who Will Steer the Think Tank?
Apart from Wong, who is also a former officer of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of State, Coinbase also chose Dr Cesare Fracassi to serve as the institute's first Chief Economist and Director of Economic Research.
Furthermore, the exchange announced Christian Catalini, the Founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Crypto-economics Lab, Marco Di Maggio, a faculty member in the Finance Unit of the Harvard Business School, and Vikramaditya Khanna, a Professor of Law at the University of Michigan William W. Cook Law School, as members of the institute's Advisory Board.
Other members of the Board are Nagpurnanand Prabhala, a Professor of Finance at the Johns Hopkins University Carey School of Business, and Manju Puri, a J.B. Fuqua Professor of Finance at the Duke University Fuqua School of Business.
