Coinbase: A bitcoin start-up spreading its bets to dominate cryptocurrency economy

As one of the biggest digital currency platforms, Coinbase was in the right place at the right time as the price of bitcoin skyrocketed in 2017, but the company has no intention of taking its crypto gains for granted. With $150 billion in assets traded across more than 20 million customers and 2017 revenue reported at $1 billion, it's plowing money back into a master plan to stay ahead in a much larger cryptocurrency economy.

While the San Francisco-based company is best known as the leading U.S. cryptocurrency trading platform, Coinbase — which landed at the No. 10 spot on the 2018 CNBC Disruptor 50 list — doesn't think of itself that way.

"We don't see ourselves as a crypto exchange," said Coinbase president and COO Asiff Hirji. "We are very focused on the establishment of the crypto economy. We see ourselves as enabler of that future economy."