Did you know? Coinbase owns 10% of all Bitcoin supply

Slow-and-steady wins the race. The crypto behemoth has a simple strategy.

At the moment, Coinbase has a marketcap of ~$13 billion. They also own around 10% of all Bitcoin supply (2 million Bitcoin).

Coinbase wants to be the doorway to the crypto world. People give them their fiat currency and exchange it with crypto. Not stoping there, they also provide access to web3 services, education, smart-contracts, NFTs, and all the crypto-goodies.

They are not new, they've been around for more than 10 years and are now a public company. But still, it makes you stop and think. How did this happen?

Also, let's not skip the fact that the crypto space is not shy from scandals, disasters, and fraud. In spite of all that, Coinbase has kept a clean profile and managed, little-by-little to grow to the top of crypto space.

Brian Armstrong, founder and CEO of Coinbase, is behind all of this.

Here's the highlights from his interview on Stratechery.

About Brian Armstrong

"I guess if you look over the last few years, why have I not been out there doing tons of press?

I mean, Sam Bankman-Fried was famously a media darling I guess. And I don’t know, it’s a mix of things. I think one is that, naturally I’m just a little bit of an introvert.

My favorite sweet spot is to be building cool products with the team, with technology, that’s the thing I like doing the most. I’m happy to do it. As a public company CEO, you’ve got to get out there and preach a little bit, but it’s not always my favorite thing."

"As a kid I was kind of shy and nerdy. I wasn’t very confident or good at talking with people.

So I did love computers, I just got fascinated with them. I had a couple of different computers in my room as a kid. I would build my own computers, learned Linux, all that kind of stuff. Eventually, in middle school or high school, I tried to learn how to program a little bit, and I didn’t understand anything that I was doing. I went and took a couple of community college classes actually, I read a couple of books. I started building websites, that was easier for me to do with things like PHP and stuff like that, as opposed to C++ which was really challenging for me, especially at that age.

And so I was trying to figure out technology. I liked technology, I just found it fascinating."

"[...] I’m happy to go do all the things like appearing before Congress, and interviews, and TV when I need to, but that’s not going to be my primary focus.

My primary focus is going to be, how do we build better products for our customers?"

How did Coinbase took the top spot of the crypto world?

"We’ve taken a very different approach over the last 10 years in terms of just leaning into compliance and security and trust, and it’s been frustrating sometimes because it feels like we have to move a little bit slower. And following the rules is not always fast, but it’s been a good validation of our strategy."

"When Coinbase started, I remember having this thought, which was, this technology seems super cool and super interesting, and it could create more freedom in the world, and some of the things like that, which eventually turned into the mission for Coinbase. But I also had the thought at that time, if someone’s going to do this right, they’re going to have to build a company that’s not sketchy. They’re going to have to probably base it in a legitimate area, they’re going to have to work with regulators, they’re going to have to go get a bunch of licenses."

"From the inception of the company, the goal was to be the most legitimate, be the most trusted one, and not try to fly under the radar."

On the paradox of building a centralised company for crypto

"Well, I don’t think it’s too big of a deal.

I mean, Coinbase is going to help people in the centralized world with crypto. We can do that for you if you want, with our retail and institutional product.

But we also are doing a lot in the decentralized world, again, through Coinbase Wallet. If you want to do “Not your keys, not your crypto”, you can do that with Coinbase Wallet, do self-custody, and you can access all of Web 3, and smart contracts and all that stuff, DeFi, so you don’t have to trust us.

My hope is that I can be somebody who is a reasonable voice in crypto, but you don’t have to trust me if you don’t want to.

Can you trust Coinbase? Yes.

We’re based in the United States. We’re a public company. We have audited financial statements. You don’t have to take our word for it. You can show that we haven’t commingled funds, and all these things that happened with other companies.

But if you don’t want to trust me, you don’t have to. And I can still hopefully be a reasonable voice.

We can build products that allow people to store crypto themselves, and use decentralized protocols.

And so I think we’re embracing the paradox, and that’s what’s ultimately going to allow this technology to flourish."

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DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.