Coinbase CEO and co-founder Brian Armstrong have applauded the work of citizen journalists and blockchain analysts surrounding the unfolding FTX crisis and its former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. In a Nov. 16 tweet that has been retweeted over 9,000 times at the time of writing, Armstrong suggested that it has been regular citizens, rather than traditional media that has uncovered many of the developments associated with the liquidity crunch and subsequent bankruptcy filing of FTX. Commenting on a recent New York Times "puff piece," Armstrong said it: "Feels like a turning point for citizen journalism and loss of trust in MSM" …

Crypto exchange Coinbase saw a huge fall in its transaction revenues in the third quarter after activity fell amid a broader market downturn, but managed to cut its losses in half compared to the prior quarter. In its shareholder letter released Nov. 3, the company shared that transaction reven had fallen from $655.2 million in the second quarter to $365.9 million, representing a decline of 44%. The company cited poor macro conditions with daily average crypto market capitalization falling 30% and trading volumes shifting away from the United States due to the lack of regulatory clarity as reasons for the …

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong believe that a gradual mind shift and important community contributions led to their backing of Ethereum’s upcoming move from a proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus. The two industry titans joined Coinbase protocol specialist Viktor Bunin on the Around the Block podcast for an enlightening discussion centered on The Merge, which is set to take place in mid-September 2022. Buterin reflected on his history of considering proof-of-stake as a potential consensus mechanism for the Ethereum blockchain, which was initially met with skepticism due to a number of unsolved problems that made …

American cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase aims to grow revenue from subscriptions in the long term to combat potential profit margin compression. The firm’s founder and CEO Brian Armstrong delved into the long-term prospects of the American cryptocurrency exchange in a wide-ranging interview with CNBC’s Crypto World on Aug. 23. A key talking point was the potential of lower revenues from fees in the future and how the company plans to preempt this possibility. Armstrong highlighted his belief that profit margin compression was bound to occur in the future as more exchanges and competitors launch similar products and services which could compete …

In light of the recent ban on crypto mixing tool Tornado Cash and the subsequent arrest of the Tornado Cash developer, there has been a growing debate around what crypto services providers would choose between decentralization and censorship in form of compliance. The question has become more prominent as Ethereum (ETH) is moving from its current proof-of-work (PoW) blockchain to a proof-of-stake (PoS) mining consensus. With the transition less than a month away, a user pointed out that more than 66% of validators on the Beacon chain (Ethereum PoS chain) will adhere to the United States Department of the Treasury's …

Crypto exchange Coinbase is getting rid of slide decks and “endless meetings” as a way to improve productivity following the purge of roughly 18% of employees last month. In a July 13 blog post, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong noted that the company is currently focused on “driving more efficiency” as it continues to scale, pointing to a 200% year-on-year employee growth over 18 months that had started to put a strain on the firm’s organizational structure. He suggested that many major firms experiencing rapid growth generally end up becoming complacent and slowing down, while great companies do the opposite: “While …

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong officially announced on Tuesday that he made a "difficult decision" to reduce the size of the Coinbase team by about 18% due to a starting economic recession. “We appear to be entering a recession after a 10+ year economic boom. A recession could lead to another crypto winter, and could last for an extended period,” Armstrong wrote. He added that the trading revenue significantly declined during past crypto winters, noting that Coinbase has survived through four major crypto winters since its foundation in 2012. Armstrong emphasized that the firm has been growing “too quickly,” with Coinbase’s …

The price of Coinbase’s junk bonds are tanking amid an underwhelming performance in Q1 and fears over what could happen in the event of a bankruptcy. According to bond trading data from Trace Bonds, both of Coinbase’s junk bond offerings have dropped roughly 17% and 5.2% since its Q1 report on Tuesday to sit at $63 and $62.31 at the time of writing. Overall, they are down 20% and 19% apiece since the start of this month. 10y coinbase bonds trading at 63 cents on the dollar pic.twitter.com/fqmKmiXk5E — state (@statelayer) May 12, 2022 Junk bonds are a form of …

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has disclosed its first net loss as a public company of $430 million in Q1, but CEO Brian Armstrong said on an earnings call that he’s “never been more bullish on where we are as a company.” In its first-quarter 2022 report, Coinbase disclosed that revenue had dropped 27% to $1.17 billion, down from $1.6 billion in the first quarter of 2021 and a long way off its Q4 2021 revenue of $2.5 billion. Monthly transacting users also dropped by over 19% to 9.2 million, from last quarter’s 11.4 million. Shares of Coinbase had already fallen by …

Major U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase will be giving its employees one week off each quarter in 2022 to recharge after “long days and long weeks” of intense work. In a Monday blog post, Coinbase chief people officer L.J. Brock said “nearly the entire company will shut down” for four separate weeks this year as part of an experiment in allowing workers to recuperate after completing intense workloads. Brock said the exchange’s employees aren’t necessarily limited to 40-hour work weeks and may have to “pivot at a moment’s notice,” seemingly creating the potential for burnout. “We realized in 2020 that many …

Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, has reportedly made a multi-million-dollar real estate purchase at the end of 2021. Armstrong bought a $133 million Los Angeles property from Japanese entrepreneur Hideki Tomita in December, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing anonymous people familiar with the matter. According to the WSJ, Tomita originally purchased the real estate for $85 million in 2018. The new deal allegedly marks the biggest home purchase ever completed in the L.A. area. Prior to being sold to Tomita, the Bel-Air estate was formerly owned by Ellen Bronfman …

As Coinbase cryptocurrency exchange is preparing to roll out its own nonfungible token (NFT) platform soon, CEO Brian Armstrong has assessed the importance of the company’s upcoming NFT offering. On Tuesday, Coinbase released its Q3 financial results, reporting $1.2 billion in revenues, which mostly comes from the platform’s transaction fees on trading cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). The firm is the largest crypto exchange in the United States, with its COIN shares publicly traded on Nasdaq. Coinbase's NFT offering would significantly boost the exchange's operations as the NFT platform could potentially flip Coinbase's entire existing cryptocurrency business. Armstrong …