Coinbase CEO confirms that Ex-Hacking Team members will ‘Transition Out’ of Neutrino

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong announced that all the three former members of the controversial Hacking Team will “transition out” of Neutrino.

Coinbase, the largest US-based cryptocurrency exchange and wallet announced in February the acquisition of the Italian blockchain intelligence startup Neutrino.

Neutrino was founded in 2016 by Giancarlo Russo, Marco Valleri, and Alberto Ornaghi. The US company has experienced some controversy due to the acquisition, the heated debate surrounding Neutrino comes from the involvement of Valleri and Ornaghi, who were both executives of surveillance firm Hacking Team.

Just after the announcement of the acquisition, Coinbase users threatened to delete their accounts in protest, on the social media the hashtag #DeleteCoinbase was used to foment a groundswell of account closures.

On Monday, Coinbase, CEO Brian Armstrong announced in a blog post that all the three former members of the controversial Hacking Team will “transition out” of cryptocurrency firm Coinbase.

“However, we had a gap in our diligence process. While we looked hard at the technology and security of the Neutrino product, we did not properly evaluate everything from the perspective of our mission and values as a crypto company.” reads the blog post.

“We took some time to dig further into this over the past week, and together with the Neutrino team have come to an agreement: those who previously worked at Hacking Team (despite the fact that they have no current affiliation with Hacking Team), will transition out of Coinbase.”

What do the words “transition out “mean?

At the time of writing is still unclear, some experts believe that Russo, Valleri, and Ornaghi will leave the company even if they are still on board.

The case demonstrates that even giants could not ignore the volunty and the code of ethic imposed by their users.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – Neutrino, Coinbase)

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