US exchange, Coinbase joins Square’s COPA

TL:DR Breakdown:

• COPA announced Coinbase as the latest company to join as a founding member.
• The consortium was introduced by Square to help drive innovation in the crypto industry.

The leading United States digital currency exchange, Coinbase, has become one of the founding members of Square’s Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA). Together with other companies already listed on the consortium, the exchange will be driven by COPA’s objective to ensure that certain cryptocurrency technology will be made available for the development of the industry. Square noted that “patent lockup” would hinder innovation and mainstream adoption.

Coinbase becomes the latest COPA member

The initiative was introduced by Square in September to enable the development of a foundational patent shield for the digital currency industry. As a member of COPA, Coinbase will participate in the movement by driving membership and administering COPA’s policies, Square noted. Coinbase now adds to the 18 companies which already joined the alliance, including Kraken exchange, Satoshi Labs, Blockstack, Blockstream, and so on. 

“As the crypto economy continues to grow, we believe it is important to help empower all projects building towards an open financial system. […] We look forward to working alongside the members of COPA to create a foundational patent shield for our industry,” Coinbase’s Senior Counsel, Brittany Cuthbert, commented. 

Aside from the exchange, Square Crypto Lead, Steve Lee, and Dan Robinson of Paradigm Research Partner were also appointed into the alliance. Their independent appointment as COPA board members comes amid their well-known contributions geared at the improvement of the many crypto initiatives.

Crypto patents

Coinbase once filed a crypto patent with the United States Patent and Trademark Office in the past two years. In the filing, the crypto exchange proposed a mechanism which it said could improve the security for transactions involving Bitcoin (BTC). The patent sought to address issues that users might leak the private keys to their wallet after transferring Bitcoin from a merchant’s page.