Evertas’ Ryan Lackey Makes Feature Requests To Armstrong

• CSO Evertas Insurance Ryan Lackey made feature requests to Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong in a tweet.
• Armstrong consents to Lackey’s request to make Coinbase a high-net-worth business neo bank.
• Lackey suggests that Coinbase start alpha testing for other crypto industry firms. 

Chief Security Officer at Evertas Insurance Ryan Lackey took to Twitter to offer Co-Founder Brian Armstrong of crypto exchange Coinbase a few useful suggestions regarding the insurance features they can offer to the crypto audience.

In the light of the abrupt implosion of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), the second largest U.S. bank failure, Ryan Lackey was seen making feature suggestions with Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase.

Lackey asks, “Why don’t you set up Coinbase as some kind of HNW [High Net Worth] business neobank, which has a pass through assets to community banks and treasuries as a first-class option in parallel with crypto?” 

To this Armstrong replies, “Definitely something we’ve thought about.” Armstrong adds that more features like outbound wires, multi-user support, etc., are all needed,” and suggests that non-fractional reserve banking is definitely something he wants to look further into now. Armstrong further asks Lackey, “What are the key features you’d want?”

Lackey goes on to explain a few features he would like to see from the Coinbase team, such as better-than-bank customer service. To add more insight, he says, “A key thing would be *better* than bank customer service, even when things are going crazy (something similar to how you handle Prime today/etc., not retail). Possibly even retail branches in SF/NY/etc. for exceptions (like FRC in footprint, not BOA).”

Lackey adds that Coinbase should maybe start with alpha testing the service for other crypto industry firms, or some other technically-sophisticated vertical. “Maybe in a specific geography, too?” asks Lackey. Furthermore, he puts forward ideas like in/out ACH and wires with tracking, multi-user with separate initiators/approvers, and some way to link to payroll.

The CSO says that people already in crypto know, trust, and love Coinbase, so that’s a natural market. However, Lackey says that it will also make sense to pick some vertical at the start which is super safe and positive PR for either charity or non-profit with easy banking needs.

In Lackey’s opinion Mercury is a most valuable player that has been able to do what Brex does in the long-term like invoicing in crypto or fiat, expense management, payment cards, etc., would be better. He suggests that the tricky part would be capital gains accounting if crypto is treated other than stablecoins, but he asserts that solving that problem will result in massive crypto adoption.

In the thread, a fellow Twitter user, Fred Ostiabs, is also seen contributing to the discussion by adding a feature request, “Automate all the tax reporting as a feature for accounts holding X amount in account.”