Coinbase Goes Singapore Shopping, Adds 50 Bodies to the Raffles Quay Family 🏙️

Coinbase plans to grow its Singapore office headcount from 150 to roughly 200 employees by the end of 2026, a 25% expansion that will target engineers, customer service staff, relationship managers and institutional sales representatives. Country director Hassan Ahmed disclosed the hiring push in an interview with The Business Times as the exchange formally opened its new office at One Raffles Quay. Ahmed said Singapore is increasingly becoming a strategic hub for cryptocurrency innovation, framing the city-state as a core pillar of Coinbase's international growth strategy.

The expansion comes more than two years after the Monetary Authority of Singapore granted Coinbase a major payment institution license in October 2023, allowing the exchange to offer regulated digital payment token services to Singaporean individuals and institutions. Singapore licenses digital payment token service providers under a regulatory regime overseen by MAS, and the central bank's directory listed 38 licensed entities as of Thursday. MAS tightened licensing requirements in 2025, a move that pushed several unlicensed firms to exit the market and reshaped the local competitive landscape for exchanges and other crypto service providers.

Singapore's pro-innovation stance has drawn a growing cluster of digital asset firms seeking predictable oversight under MAS supervision, with Coinbase's investment in headcount the latest signal that licensed venues are scaling rather than retreating. The exchange did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the report. Coinbase Global is listed on Nasdaq under the ticker $COIN, while major crypto assets $BTC and $ETH continue to trade across licensed venues serving Singaporean customers.