US cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, will acquire Israeli cryptography and protection firm Unbound Security and set up an Israeli R&D center based on Unbound’s infrastructure, the American company announced late last month.
Founded in 2015 by cryptographers Professor Yehuda Lindell, current CEO, and Professor Nigel Smart, the company was also co-founded by Guy Peer, Unbound’s current Security’s VP of R&D. The Petah Tikva-based company has raised $40 million to date and employs many people in its R&D center.
Coinbase calls Unbound Security “a pioneer in a number of cryptographic security technologies,” including the emerging field of secure multi-party computation (MPC). Unbound Security’s co-founder Lindell is a world leader in this field.
Cryptography is the study of secure communications techniques that allow only the sender and intended recipient of a message to view its contents. Cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual currency that is secured by cryptography. Many cryptocurrencies are decentralized networks based on blockchain technology—a distributed ledger enforced by a disparate network of computers.
The acquisition helps Coinbase gain access to some of the world’s most sophisticated cryptographic security experts, including Peer, who has more than 20 years in the field.
“This presence in Israel will add an additional powerful prong to Coinbase’s global talent acquisition strategy, following on closely to recent thrusts into engineering talent bases such as India, Singapore, and Brazil,” Coinbase said in the announcement.
The company also plans to establish an R&D center to “ensure Coinbase is always at the bleeding edge of security and blockchain technology.”
“We’ve long recognized Israel as a hotbed of strong technology and cryptography talent, and are excited to continue to grow our team with some of the best and brightest minds in these fields. The Unbound Security team will form the nucleus of this new research facility, which we plan to grow over time,” the company said.
Crypto can’t grow without strong cryptography and strong security but it also needs to be user-friendly, the statement from Coinbase said. The company believes MPC is the wy to make this happen. Secure multi-party computation is an application of advanced mathematics to enable crypto assets to be stored, transferred, and deployed more securely, easily, and flexibly than before.
