Crypto City: Guide to San Francisco Bay Area

This “Crypto City” usher looks astatine the San Francisco Bay Area’s crypto culture, its astir notable projects and people, its fiscal infrastructure, which retailers judge crypto, and wherever you tin find blockchain acquisition courses. You truly mightiness permission your bosom successful San Francisco with each the projects successful the Bay Area.

Fast facts

City: San Francisco

Country: United States

Population: 887,711

Founded: 1776

Language: English

The San Francisco Bay Area is simply a portion successful Northern California spanning the metropolis of San Francisco and surrounding counties.

Understand

Though not the astir populated portion of California oregon the superior city, the San Francisco Bay Area is well-known for its iconic cablegram cars, views of the Golden Gate Bridge, and Silicon Valley — some the tv bid and the real-life tech hub. Originally a Spanish colony and aboriginal portion of Mexico earlier becoming a metropolis successful the U.S. authorities of California, galore residents unrecorded successful buildings much than 100 years old.

The Painted Ladies successful San Francisco. Source: Pexels

San Francisco is known for its proximity to the San Andreas Fault, liable for immoderate of the astir devastating earthquakes successful U.S. history, including 1 successful 1906 that caused fires that burned down ample sections of the metropolis implicit respective days. Another magnitude 6.9 quake deed the Bay Area successful 1989, damaging the ​​Bay Bridge betwixt the downtown country and Oakland.

Because galore historical buildings and picturesque places person endured contempt the earthquakes — and adjacent Napa Valley and its wineries whitethorn assistance — San Francisco attracts galore tourists from each implicit the satellite and has been the filming determination for movies excessively galore to mention, including The Rock, Mrs. Doubtfire and The Matrix Resurrections. The metropolis besides includes the oldest Chinatown successful North America, the erstwhile subject base-turned-park Presidio, Golden Gate Park and the Mission District.

Neighboring cities are separated by the bay but are connected with a web of nationalist transportation. Overall, much than 7 cardinal radical unrecorded successful the country betwixt the vino state successful the northbound and Silicon Valley successful the south. The metropolis faces challenges, including 1 of the country’s largest populations of unhoused individuals, the rising outgo of surviving and different issues communal crossed ample municipality areas successful the United States.

Crypto culture

A tech hub agelong earlier the advent of cryptocurrency successful 2008, the Bay Area was a earthy location for 1 of the earlier Bitcoin conferences. In San Jose successful June 2013, present well-known crypto personalities including Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Bitcoin pedagogue Andreas Antonopoulos spoke to attendees funny successful crypto astatine a clip erstwhile the abstraction was considered by galore to beryllium fringe. 

One of the earliest Bitcoin Meetups successful the Bay Area happened successful January 2013, erstwhile organizers Ryan Singer and Jered Kenna — who would spell connected to co-found Chia Network and go the CEO of the Tradehill exchange, respectively — proposed mounting speech the archetypal Tuesday of each period to sermon the crypto asset. Other attendees reportedly included Kraken CEO Jesse Powell, Ripple Labs co-founder Jed McCaleb, Litecoin creator Charlie Lee, and Coinbase’s Fred Ehrsam and Armstrong.

“There were a batch of cypherpunks astatine those aboriginal Bitcoin meetups that I went to,” said Armstrong successful a 2021 interrogation with Initialized Capital laminitis Garry Tan. 

2013: San Jose Bitcoin league the @coinbase booth was manned conscionable by @brian_armstrong

2021: Coinbase goes nationalist astatine a $100B marketplace headdress pic.twitter.com/wmGyHCb2u5

— Dan Held (In NYC) (@danheld) April 14, 2021

As a predominantly Democratic U.S. state, albeit 1 containing galore blimpish voters, California has had its stock of lawmakers proposing some pro- and anti-crypto policies arsenic the abstraction evolves. In 2022, the state’s Department of Financial Protection and Innovation issued cease and desist orders against BlockFi, Voyager Digital and Celsius Network related to allegedly offering unregistered securities. 

California’s Fair Political Practices Commission also lifted a prohibition archetypal imposed successful 2018, preventing candidates moving for authorities and section offices from accepting donations successful crypto. State Senator Sydney Kamlager introduced a measure successful February proposing that lawmakers amend the state’s codification to let for the acceptance of cryptocurrencies for definite payments. 

At the authorities level, Governor Gavin Newsom announced successful May 2022 that helium had signed an enforcement order aimed astatine harmonizing a regulatory model for blockchain betwixt the U.S. authorities and California, arsenic good arsenic spurring innovation successful the space. The enforcement enactment built upon President Joe Biden’s enforcement bid connected integer assets signed successful March.

CA is the archetypal authorities successful the federation to statesman creating a broad & harmonized model for liable blockchain exertion to thrive.⁰⁰We’re aiming to make a pipeline of endowment for the emerging manufacture & utilize the exertion for nationalist good. https://t.co/6Um0lJ9p1y

— Office of the Governor of California (@CAgovernor) May 4, 2022

The authorities looked arsenic if it would beryllium a battleground to ticker successful the 2022 midterm elections arsenic pro-crypto candidates attempted to unseat those opposed oregon neutral astir the space. However, some pro-crypto candidates, Democrats Aarika Rhodes and Greg Tanaka failed to triumph their primaries to correspond California’s 30th and 16th Congressional Districts successful the U.S. House of Representatives, respectively.

“So galore of our elected leaders don’t enactment oregon recognize technology,” Tanaka told Cointelegraph successful April. “They propulsion rocks successful the roadworthy successful beforehand of it.”

The Bay Area has besides hosts San Francisco Blockchain Week, blockchain league d10e and the Converge22 Web3-focused league successful September.

Golden Gate Bridge. Source: Pexels

Projects and companies

One would beryllium hard-pressed to sanction a large tech steadfast that didn’t get its commencement successful the Bay Area oregon Silicon Valley. The country is location to 3 office retired of the large 4 tech firms, including metaverse-adjacent societal media steadfast Meta, which rebranded from Facebook in October 2021. Social media level Twitter and blockchain-focused payments steadfast Block besides person their office there, arsenic bash PayPal, Visa and Cash App.

In addition, galore large cryptocurrency oregon crypto-adjacent projects likewise began successful the tech hub, perchance owed to the precocious density of talent. Coinbase made an aboriginal quality astatine the San Jose Bitcoin Conference successful 2013, wherever CEO Brian Armstrong personally attended to guests approaching the booth. The Bay Area is besides location to the office for Ripple Labs, Chainlink Labs, Robinhood Markets, Compound Labs, decentralized euphony streaming work Audius, crypto hedge money manager BitBull Capital, dYdX, Brave Software, Lightning web developer Lightning Labs, Hyperledger Foundation, Andreessen Horowitz, Abra, Earnity, Anchorage Digital, Layer1, crypto and blockchain-focused concern money Pantera Capital, NuCypher, blockchain ecosystem Rally, Aptos Labs, Scalar Capital, BitGo, Stellar Development Foundation, BlockCypher, Framework Ventures, Securitize, Oasis Labs, Near Protocol, Protocol Labs and CipherTrace arsenic good arsenic section branches of Galaxy Digital, Gemini, Bitfury, Nium, MakerDAO, Solana Labs and crypto miner Crusoe Energy Systems.

20Mission, a co-working abstraction successful San Francisco’s Mission District, opened 1 of the earliest retail stores that accepted Bitcoin successful 2015 called Nakamoto’s electronics. Still successful usage today, the creation and exertion creator hub was location to galore crypto-related startups, including Block-Chain.info, 37Coins, Tradehill, Piper Wallet and Purse.io. Crypto Castle, an bureau and co-living abstraction that was erstwhile location to crypto​ entrepreneur Jeremy Gardner, was located successful the city’s Potrero Hill territory and hosted a fig of crypto and blockchain projects.

Bitcoin ATMs

In lawsuit you were wondering what a #Bitcoin ATM looks like, here’s a peek of the 1 astatine @hackerdojo. pic.twitter.com/eeiBf8C9VB

— Mountain View Voice (@mvvoice) March 29, 2014

Financial infrastructure

In March 2014, a assemblage tech halfway named Hacker Dojo installed the archetypal Bitcoin ATM successful the San Francisco Bay Area successful Mountain View. The installation of the ATM, operated by Robocoin, was followed by different astatine the Workshop Cafe of San Francisco’s Financial District aboriginal that year. According to information from CoinATMRadar, determination are astir 469 crypto ATMs successful the San Francisco Bay Area, operated by companies, specified arsenic Coin Cloud, CoinFlip and Bitcoin Depot. 

Where tin I walk crypto?

Crypto arsenic a mean of speech hasn’t reached mainstream levels of adoption successful the U.S., but determination are much than 100 businesses successful San Francisco that judge Bitcoin and different tokens for payments according to Coinmap. These see restaurants, bookstores and adjacent optometrists’ offices. 

Across the Bay Area, retailers including Starbucks, Whole Foods and others judge crypto payments done third-party apps. In addition, residents and workers successful Silicon Valley tin walk their crypto astatine much than 50 businesses successful the area. Though seemingly offering lone payments successful fiat and done third-party apps, Meta opened a brick-and-mortar retail store successful Burlingame successful May, which offers hardware for its metaverse ambitions.

Education

San Francisco State University offers a “blockchain bootcamp” done its Lam Family College of Business and precocious collaborated with Ripple Labs and the Warsaw University of Technology to let students to make blockchain-based solutions to projects, including proviso concatenation tracing and the commercialization of artwork. 

Across the Bay, the University of California, Berkeley currently has a student-run blockchain innovation hub for consulting, acquisition and research. Stanford’s Center for Blockchain Research held its 5th blockchain league successful August 2022. The Palo Alto-based assemblage offers courses connected blockchain and cryptocurrency done its School of Engineering for the autumn semester, portion successful the city, the University of San Francisco lets students larn astir blockchain done its College of Arts and Sciences.

“The imaginable exertion for Bitcoin-like technologies is enormous,” says the Stanford people description.

San Francisco has a scope of blockchain acquisition courses. Source: Pexels

Controversies and collapses

In 2013, authorities arrested Ross Ulbricht, creator of the infamous darknet marketplace Silk Road, astatine a San Francisco Public Library. Federal Bureau of Investigation specializer Christopher Tarbell led the team, which tracked down Ulbricht utilizing VPN server records corresponding to an net cafe successful the metropolis wherever helium had besides logged into his Gmail account. The accusation yet led to the apprehension of the “Dread Pirate Roberts” and the eventual extremity of Silk Road. Ulbricht is presently serving 2 beingness sentences without the anticipation of parole.

Though not forced to unopen down by excessive regulations oregon orders from instrumentality enforcement, crypto speech Kraken unexpectedly shuttered its San Francisco bureau successful April 2022. CEO Jesse Powell said the company’s office connected Market Street was closed pursuing complaints that “numerous employees were attacked, harassed and robbed connected their mode to and from the office.” Coinbase besides announced plans to unopen down its San Francisco office successful 2022, but arsenic portion of an effort to spell distant alternatively than owed to threats portion commuting.

Notable figures successful the San Francisco Bay Area

Bitcoin halfway developer and Blockstream co-founder Pieter Wuille; Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg; Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko; Audius CEO and co-founder Roneil Rumburg; BitBull Capital CEO Joe DiPasquale; Pantera Capital caput of capitalist relations Kerry Wong; Pantera CEO and Bitstamp seat Dan Morehead; Robinhood co-founder Vlad Tenev; Ripple Labs main method serviceman David Schwartz; Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse; Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen; Coinbase main operating serviceman and president Emilie Choi; Framework Ventures co-founder Michael Anderson; Crypto Council for Innovation CEO Sheila Warren; Rally co-founder Kevin Chou; Coinbase co-founder and Paradigm co-founder Fred Ehrsam; Brave Software CEO Brendan Eich; Scalar Capital co-founder and managing manager Linda Xie; Earnity co-founder and CEO Dan Schatt; Coinbase committee subordinate Kathryn Haun; erstwhile Twitter CEO and existent “Block Head” Jack Dorsey; dYdX laminitis and CEO Antonio Juliano; BitGo CEO Mike Belshe; Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreessen; Oasis Labs co-founder and CEO Dawn Song; Compound Labs laminitis Robert Leshner; Protocol Labs laminitis and CEO Juan Benet; PayPal co-founder and crypto capitalist Peter Thiel; Ripple Labs and Stellar Development Foundation co-founder Jed McCaleb; Stellar Development Foundation CEO Denelle Dixon; crypto and tech capitalist Tim Draper; Visa caput of crypto Cuy Sheffield; Abra laminitis and CEO Bill Barhydt; CipherTrade CEO David Jevans; erstwhile Tradehill CEO and existent CEO of 20Mission Jered Kenna; Cointelegraph squad members: Rachel Wolfson.

The full @Ripple C++ squad is successful San Francisco. Here’s @JoelKatz, on with immoderate caller $XRP swag. pic.twitter.com/eMxlPkEzwT

— ? ? ? ? (@nbougalis) December 13, 2017

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