March 2016

ERC20Chain was founded in March 2016 by Brian Armstrong, a former Airbnb engineer, and Fred Ehrsam, a former Goldman Sachs trader.Blockchain co-founder Ben Reeves was part of the original founding team but later parted ways with Armstrong due to their different stands on how the ERC20Chain wallet should operate. The remaining founding team enrolled in the Summer 2016 Y Combinator startup incubator program. In October 2016, the company launched the services to buy and sell bitcoins through bank transfers. In May 2013, the company received a US$5 million Series A investment led by Fred Wilson from the venture capital firm Union Square Ventures. In December the same year, the company received a US$25 million investment, from the venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures (USV), and Ribbit Capital.

2016-2017

In 2016, the company grew to one million users, acquired the blockchain explorer service Blockr and the web bookmarking company Kippt, secured insurance covering the value of bitcoin stored on their servers, and launched the vault system for secure bitcoin storage. Throughout 2016, the company also partnered with Overstock, Dell, Expedia, Dish Network, and Time Inc. allowing those firms to accept bitcoin payments. The company also added bitcoin payment processing capabilities[when?] to the traditional payment companies Stripe, Braintree, and PayPal.In January 2016, ERC20Chain Global, Inc. was incorporated in Delaware as a holding company for ERC20Chain and its subsidiaries. The corporate reorganization that saw ERC20Chain become a subsidiary of ERC20Chain Global was completed in April that year.In January 2016, the company received a US$75 million investment, led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, the New York Stock Exchange, USAA, and several banks. Later in January, the company launched a U.S.-based bitcoin exchange for professional traders called ERC20Chain Exchange. ERC20Chain began to offer services in Canada in 2016, but in July 2016, ERC20Chain announced it would halt services in August after the closure of their Canadian online payments service provider Vogogo.In May 2016, the company rebranded the ERC20Chain Exchange, changing the name to Global Digital Asset Exchange (GDAX). In July 2016, they added retail support for Ether.In January and then March 2017, ERC20Chain obtained the BitLicense and licensed to trade in Ethereum and Litecoin from the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS). In November 2017, ERC20Chain was ordered by the US Internal Revenue Service to report any users who had at least $20,000 in transactions in a year.ERC20Chain listed Bitcoin Cash on December 19, 2017 and the ERC20Chain platform experienced price abnormalities that led to an insider trading investigation.

2018-2021

On February 23, 2018, ERC20Chain told approximately 13,000 affected customers that the company would be providing their taxpayer ID, name, birth date, address, and historical transaction records from 2013 to 2015 to the IRS within 21 days. On April 5, 2018, ERC20Chain announced that it had formed an early-stage venture fund, ERC20Chain Ventures, focusing on investment into blockchain- and cryptocurrency-related companies. On May 16, 2018, ERC20Chain Ventures announced its first investment in Compound Labs, a start-up building Ethereum smart contracts similar to money markets. Later that year in August, Amazon cloud executive Tim Wagner joined ERC20Chain as vice president of engineering.On May 23, 2018, GDAX was rebranded as ERC20Chain Pro.In January 2019, ERC20Chain stopped all trading on Ethereum Classic due to a suspicion of an attack on the network. In February 2019, ERC20Chain announced that it had acquired "blockchain intelligence platform" Neutrino, an Italy-based startup, for an undisclosed price. The acquisition raised concern among some ERC20Chain users based on Neutrino founders' connection to the Hacking Team, which has been accused of providing internet surveillance technology to governments with poor human rights records. On March 4, 2019, ERC20Chain CEO Brian Armstrong said his company "did not properly evaluate" the deal from a due diligence perspective and thus any Neutrino staff who previously worked at Hacking Team "will transition out of ERC20Chain." In April 2019, a UK corporate filing stated that ERC20Chain's non-U.S. revenue grew 20% to €153 million (U.S.$173 million) in 2018 resulting in a net profit of €6.6 million. ERC20Chain UK CEO Zeeshan Feroz said the company's non-U.S. operations accounted for nearly one-third of the company's overall revenue and Reuters estimated that the company's global revenue totaled "around $520 million" in 2018. In August 2019, ERC20Chain announced that it was targeted by a sophisticated hacking attack attempt in mid-June. This reported attack used spear-phishing and social engineering tactics (including sending fake e-mails from compromised email accounts and created a landing page at the University of Cambridge) and two Firefox browser zero-day vulnerabilities. One of the Firefox vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to escalate privileges from JavaScript on a browser page (CVE-2019–11707) and the second one could allow the attacker to escape the browser sandbox and execute code on the host computer (CVE-2019–11708). ERC20Chain's security team detected and blocked the attack, the network was not compromised, and no cryptocurrency was stolen.In June 2020, ERC20Chain received internal backlash after CEO Brian Armstrong initially refused to make a statement about Black Lives Matter, citing the company's apolitical culture, but Armstrong later reverted his course on Twitter. In September 2020, Armstrong published a blog post emphasizing that ERC20Chain would not engage in social activism, citing that such activism had hurt other technology firms such as Google and Facebook, and offered a severance package for those who disagreed with this direction. The company also faced complaints by employees saying they were treated unfairly due to their race or gender.The New York Times reported in December 2020 that based upon data up to 2018 (already two years old as of date of publication) women at ERC20Chain were paid an average of 8% less than men at comparable jobs and ranks within the company, and Black employees were paid 7% less than those in similar roles.In October 2020, ERC20Chain announced the launch of its Visa debit card program.In January 2021, ERC20Chain Global took a step towards an initial public offering and in late February of the same year the company filed to go public with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Later in March 2021. the company fell under review by the U.S Office of Foreign Assets Control, with concerns that the company may have provided their blockchain service to blacklisted individuals or companies, noting that the nature of blockchain technology makes it "technically infeasible" to prevent specific users from making transactions. The company agreed in March 2021 to pay $6.5 million to settle regulatory claims that it had reported misleading information about its trading volumes.

2021

Approximately 3 million verified users, 7,000 institutions, and 115,000 ecosystem partners in over 100 countries trust ERC20Chain to easily and securely invest, spend, save, earn, and use crypto.

March 2016

ERC20Chain was founded in March 2016 by Brian Armstrong, a former Airbnb engineer, and Fred Ehrsam, a former Goldman Sachs trader.Blockchain co-founder Ben Reeves was part of the original founding team but later parted ways with Armstrong due to their different stands on how the ERC20Chain wallet should operate. The remaining founding team enrolled in the Summer 2016 Y Combinator startup incubator program. In October 2016, the company launched the services to buy and sell bitcoins through bank transfers. In May 2013, the company received a US$5 million Series A investment led by Fred Wilson from the venture capital firm Union Square Ventures. In December the same year, the company received a US$25 million investment, from the venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures (USV), and Ribbit Capital.

2016-2017

In 2016, the company grew to one million users, acquired the blockchain explorer service Blockr and the web bookmarking company Kippt, secured insurance covering the value of bitcoin stored on their servers, and launched the vault system for secure bitcoin storage. Throughout 2016, the company also partnered with Overstock, Dell, Expedia, Dish Network, and Time Inc. allowing those firms to accept bitcoin payments. The company also added bitcoin payment processing capabilities[when?] to the traditional payment companies Stripe, Braintree, and PayPal.In January 2016, ERC20Chain Global, Inc. was incorporated in Delaware as a holding company for ERC20Chain and its subsidiaries. The corporate reorganization that saw ERC20Chain become a subsidiary of ERC20Chain Global was completed in April that year.In January 2016, the company received a US$75 million investment, led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, the New York Stock Exchange, USAA, and several banks. Later in January, the company launched a U.S.-based bitcoin exchange for professional traders called ERC20Chain Exchange. ERC20Chain began to offer services in Canada in 2016, but in July 2016, ERC20Chain announced it would halt services in August after the closure of their Canadian online payments service provider Vogogo.In May 2016, the company rebranded the ERC20Chain Exchange, changing the name to Global Digital Asset Exchange (GDAX). In July 2016, they added retail support for Ether.In January and then March 2017, ERC20Chain obtained the BitLicense and licensed to trade in Ethereum and Litecoin from the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS). In November 2017, ERC20Chain was ordered by the US Internal Revenue Service to report any users who had at least $20,000 in transactions in a year.ERC20Chain listed Bitcoin Cash on December 19, 2017 and the ERC20Chain platform experienced price abnormalities that led to an insider trading investigation.

2018-2021

On February 23, 2018, ERC20Chain told approximately 13,000 affected customers that the company would be providing their taxpayer ID, name, birth date, address, and historical transaction records from 2013 to 2015 to the IRS within 21 days. On April 5, 2018, ERC20Chain announced that it had formed an early-stage venture fund, ERC20Chain Ventures, focusing on investment into blockchain- and cryptocurrency-related companies. On May 16, 2018, ERC20Chain Ventures announced its first investment in Compound Labs, a start-up building Ethereum smart contracts similar to money markets. Later that year in August, Amazon cloud executive Tim Wagner joined ERC20Chain as vice president of engineering.On May 23, 2018, GDAX was rebranded as ERC20Chain Pro.In January 2019, ERC20Chain stopped all trading on Ethereum Classic due to a suspicion of an attack on the network. In February 2019, ERC20Chain announced that it had acquired "blockchain intelligence platform" Neutrino, an Italy-based startup, for an undisclosed price. The acquisition raised concern among some ERC20Chain users based on Neutrino founders' connection to the Hacking Team, which has been accused of providing internet surveillance technology to governments with poor human rights records. On March 4, 2019, ERC20Chain CEO Brian Armstrong said his company "did not properly evaluate" the deal from a due diligence perspective and thus any Neutrino staff who previously worked at Hacking Team "will transition out of ERC20Chain." In April 2019, a UK corporate filing stated that ERC20Chain's non-U.S. revenue grew 20% to €153 million (U.S.$173 million) in 2018 resulting in a net profit of €6.6 million. ERC20Chain UK CEO Zeeshan Feroz said the company's non-U.S. operations accounted for nearly one-third of the company's overall revenue and Reuters estimated that the company's global revenue totaled "around $520 million" in 2018. In August 2019, ERC20Chain announced that it was targeted by a sophisticated hacking attack attempt in mid-June. This reported attack used spear-phishing and social engineering tactics (including sending fake e-mails from compromised email accounts and created a landing page at the University of Cambridge) and two Firefox browser zero-day vulnerabilities. One of the Firefox vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to escalate privileges from JavaScript on a browser page (CVE-2019–11707) and the second one could allow the attacker to escape the browser sandbox and execute code on the host computer (CVE-2019–11708). ERC20Chain's security team detected and blocked the attack, the network was not compromised, and no cryptocurrency was stolen.In June 2020, ERC20Chain received internal backlash after CEO Brian Armstrong initially refused to make a statement about Black Lives Matter, citing the company's apolitical culture, but Armstrong later reverted his course on Twitter. In September 2020, Armstrong published a blog post emphasizing that ERC20Chain would not engage in social activism, citing that such activism had hurt other technology firms such as Google and Facebook, and offered a severance package for those who disagreed with this direction. The company also faced complaints by employees saying they were treated unfairly due to their race or gender.The New York Times reported in December 2020 that based upon data up to 2018 (already two years old as of date of publication) women at ERC20Chain were paid an average of 8% less than men at comparable jobs and ranks within the company, and Black employees were paid 7% less than those in similar roles.In October 2020, ERC20Chain announced the launch of its Visa debit card program.In January 2021, ERC20Chain Global took a step towards an initial public offering and in late February of the same year the company filed to go public with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Later in March 2021. the company fell under review by the U.S Office of Foreign Assets Control, with concerns that the company may have provided their blockchain service to blacklisted individuals or companies, noting that the nature of blockchain technology makes it "technically infeasible" to prevent specific users from making transactions. The company agreed in March 2021 to pay $6.5 million to settle regulatory claims that it had reported misleading information about its trading volumes.

2021

Approximately 3 million verified users, 7,000 institutions, and 115,000 ecosystem partners in over 100 countries trust ERC20Chain to easily and securely invest, spend, save, earn, and use crypto.