Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong on Bitcoin

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“There is really no excuse I can give you, so all I can tell you is we make mistakes as well, and a lot of building a company is trying to learn from mistakes and just get better over time.”
— Brian Armstrong

SHOW DESCRIPTION

Location: Zoom
Date: Thursday 23rd July
Company: Coinbase
Role: Co-Founder & CEO

Coinbase is amongst the largest and most established Bitcoin companies in the world, and it has secured itself as one of the most accessible places to buy and sell Bitcoin. Its latest round of funding valued Coinbase at $8.1 billion, and there are rumours that the company plans to be listed on a U.S stock exchange later this year.

Forbes recently called Coinbase ‘Bitcoin’s Guardian Angel’ and claimed it would make ‘crypto safe for all’; however, the view within the Bitcoin community is quite different. Coinbase has come under heavy scrutiny in recent years, most notably for their $13.5 million acquisition of blockchain intelligence company Neutrino. Following this acquisition, it was revealed that the Neutrino founders were involved in the Hacking Team, a team of people who reportedly sold surveillance tools to governments, including authoritarian regimes. With this news, #deletecoinbase was trending on bitcoin twitter, putting CEO Brian Armstrong under considerable pressure to fire the team.

More recently, Coinbase again sparked controversy when The Block reported that the company agreed to sell blockchain analysis software to The Secret Service and the IRS, and was planning a similar deal with the DEA. 

In this interview, I talk to Brian Armstrong, CEO and Co-Founder of Coinbase. We discuss the difficulties in running a large startup, regulations, the Neutrino acquisition & providing analytics to government agencies with Coinbase Analytics.

TIMESTAMPS

00:04:45: Introductions
00:06:27: Engaging with the public
00:12:55: Relationships with consumers
00:14:29: Normal day for Brian
00:16:07: Adapting to Covid-19
00:18:49: Brian’s Background
00:24:11: Beginnings of Coinbase
00:26:06: Investment from Y Combinator
00:28:03: Start-up life and difficulties Coinbase faced
00:32:40: Banking agreement with Silicon Valley Bank
00:36:40: Pressures of the job
00:39:59: Stewardship of Bitcoin
00:41:02: SegWit2x
00:47:53: Risks of hard forks
00:49:42: Regrets around SegWit2x
00:53:01: Spectrum of goals within Bitcoin
00:56:03: Sponsoring Bitcoin developers
01:00:13: Personal views on privacy
01:03:05: Relationship with regulators
01:08:31: Educating government officials
01:10:37: Giving account details to the IRS
01:13:56: Legal outlook of Coinbase
01:15:58: Coinbase Analytics
01:19:25: Clarification around data
01:24:03: Data misuse in oppressive regimes
01:28:48: Privacy coins and listing Monero
01:32:39: Neutrino acquisition and Hacking Team
01:38:20: Moving on team members from Hacking Team
01:40:51: IPO Rumours
01:41:14: Lessons learnt from 2017
01:44:00: Motivations and future goals
01:45:48: Final comments

 

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SHOW NOTES

PodcastPeter McCormack