Chicago-based cryptocurrency services firm CoinFlip opened its Tampa office as a strategic recruitment hub in October, and it has quickly exceeded expectations, according to Chief Technology Officer Rory Herriman.
CoinFlip planned to make upwards of 40 hires in its first year in Tampa, “but we were at that number in six months,” Herriman said.
“The plan was to build in a compelling location and bring people in from out of state…Ironically, we’ve hired a lot of local talent,” he said.
CoinFlip now has a workforce of 55 tech and compliance professionals in the Tampa Bay region, including 50 at its office in Sparkman Wharf, which Herriman said has become the epicenter of CoinFlip’s product development operations.
The Sparkman office is also home to CoinFlip’s “Crypto Experience Center,” a consumer-oriented space for hosting educational events and providing the public with a physical connection to the world of digital assets. The proximity of CoinFlip’s engineering operations to customers is by design, Herriman said.
“We’re at the heart of where we build our products…this is where they’re conceived,” he said. “We want our product builders to have direct customer interaction and be able to ask ‘what’s working? What do you like and what don’t you like?”
While Tampa Bay doesn’t have a substantial crypto-centric workforce, it is earning its stripes as a major emerging tech hub broadly, according to Herriman.
“There are some phenomenal companies here, from ReliaQuest to Rapid7…That is the type of engineering talent that this market needs to continue to grow and expand,” he said. “It’s not just software development, it’s the complex skillsets and substantial experience that it takes to build financial products and services.”
CoinFlip built its brand as a Bitcoin ATM operator, but it has since expanded from physical kiosks with the launch of a financial services app, Olliv, in April.
Herriman described Olliv as a retail marketplace with a collective set of products and services that allow customers to maintain complete ownership, or sovereignty, of their digital assets in an accessible, educational, and user-friendly manner.
The vast majority of CoinFlip’s executive team came from backgrounds in traditional finance, which “speaks loudly to our strategy,” he said.
“Yes, we operate in the crypto industry, but we’re not a crypto company; we’re a financial services company,” he said.
Herriman reflected on the tough past twelve months for the crypto industry, saying, now, “we’re on the upswing.”
“With every one of these cycles, the industry becomes more mature and more trustworthy…I’m very optimistic,” he said. “The future of crypto is about those who are yet to come. It’s an industry that’s still shaping itself.”
