Coinbase expanding employee base in India despite pausing services: Report

New Delhi: Global cryptocurrency platform Coinbase, which discontinued its services in October, is reportedly expanding its workforce in India.

According to Moneycontrol, citing sources, the cryptocurrency platform is hiring for product and technology roles across remote working and Bengaluru and Hyderabad locations.

To name a few, Coinbase is hiring software engineers, engineering managers for platform-payments, data scientists and vendor management analyst roles.

Over the past three weeks, about 30 open positions have been posted on the company's LinkedIn page, but it is unclear how many people are being recruited, the report said.

The report also mentioned that crypto firms like Coinbase and Gemini are working on setting up tech talent hubs in the country.

In September, the company announced its plans to end all services for its users in the country.

Coinbase Co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong visited India last year and had questioned “informal restrictions” on crypto trading by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).

Armstrong had claimed that Coinbase had to halt the trading service in India because of “informal pressure” from the RBI.

Since 2022, Coinbase has announced multiple rounds of layoffs, including the dismissal of approximately 950 employees in January 2023.

In June 2022, the company laid off around 18 per cent of its workforce and halted several projects due to difficult market conditions in the cryptocurrency industry.