Community Response to Coinbase BUIDL Reflects Overall Crypto Mood

In a step that crypto fans immediately labeled as overkill bordering on offensive, California-based Coinbase filed a trademark request for popular crypto jargon BUIDL, a misspelled version of the word BUILD. Coinbase quickly responded to this strong reaction to its trademark application with an announcement from Coinbase CTO Balaji S. Srinivasan, who made the following statement in the tweet below.

Saw the commotion on Twitter & dug into this. Coinbase filed the trademark for BUIDL some time back. I learned about it today & chatted with team. TLDR is that @brian_armstrong & I don’t believe in trademarks for stuff like this so we’ll be giving this one back to the community.

— balajis.com (@balajis) December 6, 2018

This news is huge for the crypto community, as it solidifies Coinbase’s commitment to serving the needs of everyone else over its own business practices. In order to truly understand the depth of this redacting of the Coinbase application for the trademark, it is important to understand the environment in which this application was submitted.

Why all the hubbub?

The “BUIDL” application for the trademark was in regard to the ‘Software as a Service (SAAS)’ wing of the company. The application states that the SAAS uses virtual currency and software that are non-downloadable. This software helps in trading, tracking, reading and using tokens with blockchain technology. Crypto fiends use BUIDL in reference to blockchain growth and progress — in particular, in reference to the proliferation of development opportunities on both the Bitcoin and Ethereum networks. For passionate crypto followers, the words they use have become symbolic of who they are. They exist in a different realm than other financial aficionados, and the fact that their language is different is a way they set themselves apart.

Reflecting the crypto mood

To the casual observer, such an issue may seem no more than petty semantics. However, this is an especially important time in the industry for the word BUIDL. BUIDL represents exactly what is happening in crypto right now. Dapps, developed primarily on the Ethereum platform, are one of the top performers in the blockchain space this year. This Dapp trend is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. Dapps became popular on Ethereum due to its flexibility and options. Ethereum’s original premise was to be a strong platform for smart contracts, something Bitcoin did not easily support. With the market trending sharply downward in recent trading, crypto enthusiasts are not only aware of the issue but are seeking to re-establish the roots of community that have brought crypto to where it is. Of primary importance is the issue of decentralization. An attempt by Coinbase to privatize a word that is not proprietary has been seen as a violation of the very roots of what makes cryptocurrency and blockchain technology tick — decentralized community. What do you think of the commotion regarding Coinbase’s attempted trademark of the word BUIDL? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!