Product lead Sid Coelho-Prabhu announced Tuesday that Coinbase Wallet now supports customizable walle usernames for sending cryptocurrencies, rather than traditional long-form ones such as «0x89136a83664fa0673930be34463e444260775dc».
Coinbase Wallet users can now send cryptocurrencies to «short human-friendly addresses,» as well as ones creating using the Ethereum Name Service (ENS).
«We believe these improvements will make cryptocurrency much easier to use and help drive adoption with a more mainstream audience,» Coelho-Prabhu said in a blog post.
Sent live Tuesday, users can send cryptocurrencies by asking recipients for their wallet usernames like «@walletfan» and use them as the sending addresses. There is also an option to keep usernames private.
To be clear, the short usernames do not replace 16-digit wallet addresses but instead provide a more user-friendly representative that sits on top. A user can send cryptocurrencies using the associated username, rather than typing in the full wallet address.
The new support also includes an integration with the Ethereum Name Service (ENS), allowing Coinbase Wallet users to send cryptocurrencies to .eth addresses.
Launching in 2018, Coinbase Wallet provides users with a service to store and transfer cryptocurrencies to one another. Users have been able to use a decentralized web feature since August 2019.
Coelho-Prabhu confirmed that all cryptocurrencies supported by the app, including bitcoin, ether and XRP, can now be sent using the new username feature.
Coinbase Hires Ex-COO of Nerdwallet to Succeed Emilie Choi in VP Role
Coinbase has hired a new a vice president of business and data to replace Emilie Choi, who was elevated to chief operating officer earlier this year.
The San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange picked up Dan Yoo, formerly the chief operating officer of personal finance site Nerdwallet and earlier a vice president of business operations and analytics at LinkedIn, where he worked with Choi.
At Coinbase, Yoo will oversee business operations, business development, corporate development and the data team.
“Coinbase is a very data-driven company”, Yoo said. “As part of this role, I’ll be making sure that internally and externally Coinbase and its customers have the data they need to make better decisions.”
Yoo has been “peripherally following” the crypto industry with a Coinbase account since 2013, he told CoinDesk.
“I would not consider myself a crypto expert by any means”, he said. “I’ve been in and around financial services for my entire career, though.”
Yoo founded a number of startups prior to working for LinkedIn, including ReliaQuote, one of the first online term life insurance brokerages, which bank tech vendor Fiserv acquired in 2003.
In his new role, Yoo plans to help tie together Coinbase’s operations.
“At Linkedin, I was on a similar team and we helped be the connective tissue for the organization”, he said. “With the hypergrowth at Coinbase, I hope to use my experience of scaling teams and getting them to work effectively together.”
