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Brian Armstrong (born January 25, 1983) is an American business executive, billionaire, and investor who is CEO of
cryptocurrency A cryptocurrency (colloquially crypto) is a digital currency designed to work through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. Individual coin ownership record ...
platform
Coinbase Coinbase Global, Inc. is an American cryptocurrency exchange. It was founded in 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam. Coinbase has over 100 million users, and is the largest U.S. based cryptocurrency exchange as well as the world's bigge ...
. He received media attention for his policy of keeping the workplace free of
political activism Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived common good. Forms of activism range from mandate build ...
.


Early life and education

Armstrong was born on January 25, 1983, near
San Jose, California San Jose, officially the City of San José ( ; ), is a cultural, commercial, and political center within Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area. With a city population of 997,368 and a metropolitan area population of 1.95 million, it is ...
; both of his parents were engineers. He attended Bellarmine College Preparatory, a
Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
, all-male, private secondary school. Armstrong attended
Rice University William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University, is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. Established in 1912, the university spans 300 acres. Rice University comp ...
in Texas, where he earned a dual bachelor's degree in economics and computer science in 2005, followed by a master's in computer science in 2006. While at Rice, he started a business matching tutors to students, and after graduating, spent a year in
Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...
working for an education company.


Career

Armstrong's early career included working as a developer for
IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...
and a consultant at
Deloitte Deloitte is a multinational professional services network based in London, United Kingdom. It is the largest professional services network in the world by revenue and number of employees, and is one of the Big Four accounting firms, along wi ...
. In 2010, he came across the
Bitcoin Bitcoin (abbreviation: BTC; Currency symbol, sign: ₿) is the first Decentralized application, decentralized cryptocurrency. Based on a free-market ideology, bitcoin was invented in 2008 when an unknown entity published a white paper under ...
white paper published under the alias
Satoshi Nakamoto Satoshi Nakamoto ( – 26 April 2011) is the name used by the presumed pseudonymous person or persons who developed bitcoin, authored the bitcoin white paper, and created and deployed bitcoin's original reference implementation. As part of the ...
. In 2011, he joined
Airbnb Airbnb, Inc. ( , an abbreviation of its original name, "Air Bed and Breakfast") is an American company operating an online marketplace for short-and-long-term homestays, experiences and services in various countries and regions. It acts as a ...
as a software engineer and was exposed to payment systems in the 190 countries Airbnb operated in at the time. While at Airbnb, he saw the difficulties of sending money to South America. He began working weekends and nights to write code in Ruby and
JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language and core technology of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. Ninety-nine percent of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior. Web browsers have ...
to buy and store cryptocoins. In 2012, he entered the
Y Combinator Y Combinator, LLC (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator and venture capital firm launched in March 2005 which has been used to launch more than 5,000 companies. The accelerator program started in Boston and Mountain View, Californi ...
startup accelerator and received a $150,000 investment, which he used to fund Coinbase. His post on
Hacker News Hacker News (HN) is a social news website focusing on computer science and entrepreneurship. It is run by the investment fund and startup incubator Y Combinator. In general, content that can be submitted is defined as "anything that gratifies one' ...
looking for a co-founder to get into the Y Combinator program later became a viral post in Hacker News. He eventually met his co-founder Fred Ehrsam on a Reddit subgroup and is quoted to have done over fifty meetings to find a perfect co-founder.


Coinbase

In 2012, Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam co-founded Coinbase, as a way for cryptocurrency enthusiasts to trade bitcoins and other digital currencies. Armstrong was its first CEO. Coinbase's first wallet iteration was called "Toshi", named after Satoshi Nakamoto, which in turn is also the name of one of Brian Armstrong's cats. A 2018 funding round valued the company at $8.1 billion, and in December 2020, the company filed with the SEC to go public through a direct listing. Following a direct listing in April 2021, Coinbase's market capitalization rose to $85B, and according to Forbes, , Armstrong has a net worth of $2.4 billion.


Book/Documentary

Armstrong appeared in the 2014 American documentary '' The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin''. He was featured in the 2020 nonfiction book ''Kings of Crypto: One Startup's Quest to Take Cryptocurrency Out of Silicon Valley and Onto Wall Street''. Armstrong and Coinbase were the subject of the documentary '' COIN: A Founder's Story'', directed by Emmy-winner Greg Kohs.


ResearchHub

Armstrong self-funded and founded the scientific research site ResearchHub, modeled on the
GitHub GitHub () is a Proprietary software, proprietary developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage, and share their code. It uses Git to provide distributed version control and GitHub itself provides access control, bug trackin ...
code repository, as a way of making research papers available to the public.


NewLimit

Armstrong co-founded NewLimit to increase human health span by targeting the biology of aging. NewLimit's primary research focus is
epigenetic reprogramming In biology, reprogramming refers to erasure and remodeling of Epigenetics, epigenetic marks, such as DNA methylation, during mammalian development or in cell culture. Such control is also often associated with alternative covalent modifications o ...
. In May 2023, the company raised $40 million in a Series A investment round.


Support for special economic zones

In January 2025, Armstrong announced that Coinbase Ventures, the venture capital wing of Coinbase, would invest in Próspera, a charter city off the coast of Honduras that is set to expand its de-regulated model under the United States' Freedom Cities initiative that's been launched by
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...
. Armstrong previously expressed interest in de-regulated economic zones in a podcast interview quoted in ''The New Republic'', saying, "I would like us to all in crypto think about how we actually go create physical places in the world to preserve freedom over the long term. I think that’s ultimately crypto’s destiny.”


Political views

Armstrong wrote a blog post in September 2020 calling Coinbase a "Mission Focused Company", discouraging employee activism and discussion of political and social issues at work. He offered severance packages for Coinbase employees uncomfortable with this policy; as a result, sixty employees (amounting to 5% of the company) left
Coinbase Coinbase Global, Inc. is an American cryptocurrency exchange. It was founded in 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam. Coinbase has over 100 million users, and is the largest U.S. based cryptocurrency exchange as well as the world's bigge ...
. Prior to this, Armstrong supported the
Black Lives Matter Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a Decentralization, decentralized political and social movement that aims to highlight racism, discrimination and Racial inequality in the United States, racial inequality experienced by black people, and to pro ...
movement and tweeted when
George Floyd George Perry Floyd Jr. (October 14, 1973 – May 25, 2020) was an African-American man who was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during an arrest made after a store clerk suspected Floyd had used a counterfeit tw ...
was murdered: "I've decided to speak up. It's a shame that this even needs to be said in this day and age, but racism,
police brutality Police brutality is the excessive and unwarranted use of force by law enforcement against an individual or Public order policing, a group. It is an extreme form of police misconduct and is a civil rights violation. Police brutality includes, b ...
, and unequal justice are unequivocally wrong, and we need to all work to eliminate them from society." In July 2023 he met with House Democrats, specifically the
New Democrat Coalition The New Democrat Coalition is a caucus in the House of Representatives of the United States Congress made up of Democrats, primarily liberals and centrists, who take a pro-business stance and a liberal-to-moderate approach to fiscal matte ...
, in a closed-door session that reportedly focused on digital-asset legislation. Armstrong according to ''Bloomberg'' had "led a campaign in Washington to create clearer rules around digital assets". Armstrong had a closed-doors meeting with Donald Trump in November 2024, reportedly to "discuss personnel appointments for his second administration." Armstrong has expressed his belief that the United States is in "slow decline" and embraces the Network State political movement made popular by former Coinbase CTO,
Balaji Srinivasan Balaji S. Srinivasan (born May 24, 1980) is an American entrepreneur and investor. He was the co-founder of Counsyl, the former chief technology officer (CTO) of Coinbase, and former general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen ...
. In 2024, Armstrong rallied bitcoin supporters behind Ohio Republican Bernie Moreno in his bid to unseat three-term Democrat
Sherrod Brown Sherrod Campbell Brown ( ; born November 9, 1952) is an American politician who served from 2007 to 2025 as a United States senator from Ohio. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the U.S. representative for from 1993 to 2007 and the 47t ...
in Ohio’s senate race. Brown, chairman of the
Senate Banking Committee The United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs (formerly the Committee on Banking and Currency), also known as the Senate Banking Committee, has jurisdiction over matters related to banks and banking, price controls, ...
, was a critic of bitcoin. Armstrong's super PAC Fairshake spent some $40 million to elect Moreno, an arch conservative opponent of abortion and LGTBQ rights, and an advocate for increasing coal and oil production.


Recognition

In 2017, at age 34, Armstrong was ranked #10 on ''
Fortune Fortune may refer to: General * Fortuna or Fortune, the Roman goddess of luck * Luck * Wealth * Fate * Fortune, a prediction made in fortune-telling * Fortune, in a fortune cookie Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''The Fortune'' (19 ...
'' 40 under 40 list. In 2019, Armstrong was named to ''Time'' magazine's 100 Next list. In 2024, ''Forbes'' named Armstrong #2 on its Crypto Rich List, with an estimated net worth of $11.2 billion. He was also listed 145th on the
Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...
400 list of the richest people in America. In 2025, Fintech Magazine named Armstrong #49 in the list of Fintech Top 100 Leaders for 2025.


Philanthropy

In 2018, Armstrong was the first cryptocurrency executive to sign
the Giving Pledge The Giving Pledge is a charitable campaign, founded by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, to encourage wealthy people to contribute a majority (i.e. more than 50%) of their wealth to philanthropic causes. , the pledge has had 236 signatories from 28 ...
, when he pledged to give away the bulk of his wealth to philanthropic causes. He also set up a philanthropic effort called GiveCrypto.org, to allow people to make public or anonymous donations to help others living in poverty.


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Armstrong, Brian 1983 births 21st-century American philanthropists American billionaires American software engineers American technology chief executives Businesspeople from California Living people People associated with Bitcoin Rice University alumni Bellarmine College Preparatory alumni