Brian Armstrong
Co-founder and CEO of Coinbase — the company that built Base.
Who he is
Brian Armstrong co-founded Coinbase in 2012 with Fred Ehrsam (who later left the board to focus on his investment firm Paradigm). Brian has been CEO continuously since. Under his leadership, Coinbase became the largest US crypto exchange and went public on the Nasdaq in April 2021 with ticker COIN.
Style and stances
Armstrong is known for a "build-through-the-bear" philosophy and has publicly emphasized long-horizon execution over hype cycles. In a widely-discussed 2020 memo titled "Coinbase is a mission-focused company," he stated that the company would avoid taking positions on broader social and political issues unrelated to its mission.
Connection to Base
Base is Coinbase's flagship onchain initiative. Armstrong has framed it as the way to bring "1 billion people onchain" — the pitch repeated across keynotes, podcasts and Coinbase shareholder letters.
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