Frederick "Fred" Ernest Ehrsam III is an American businessman, and the co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange

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 ...

and the venture investment firm

Paradigm In science and philosophy, a paradigm ( ) is a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitute legitimate contributions to a field. The word ''paradigm'' is Ancient ...

Education and early life

Ehrsam was born on May 10, 1988, in Boston, growing up in

Concord, Massachusetts Concord () is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. In the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the town population was 18,491. The United States Census Bureau considers Concord part of Greater Boston. The town center is n ...

. He played video games professionally in high school, and was an avid

World of Warcraft ''World of Warcraft'' (''WoW'') is a 2004 massively multiplayer online role-playing (MMORPG) video game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment for Windows and Mac OS X. Set in the '' Warcraft'' fantasy universe, ''World of War ...

player, which introduced him to the concept of in-game digital currencies. In 2010, Ehrsam graduated with distinction from

Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...

, earning a B.S. in

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

with a minor in

economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

. At Duke, he was a member of the

Sigma Alpha Epsilon Sigma Alpha Epsilon () is a North American Greek-letter social college fraternity. It was founded at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on March 9, 1856.Baird, William Raimond, ed. (1905).Baird's Manual of American College Fratern ...

fraternity.

Career

After graduating from Duke, Ehrsam became a foreign exchange trader at the investment bank

Goldman Sachs The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered in Lower Manhattan in New York City, with regional headquarters in many internationa ...

in New York City. He learned about Bitcoin from a Georgetown University professor's paper, and began trading in his free time.

Coinbase

In 2012, Ehrsam and Brian Armstrong co-founded Coinbase in an apartment in San Francisco, as a way for cryptocurrency enthusiasts to trade bitcoins and other digital currencies. The two met on the Bitcoin

subreddit Reddit ( ) is an American Proprietary software, proprietary social news news aggregator, aggregation and Internet forum, forum Social media, social media platform. Registered users (commonly referred to as "redditors") submit content to the ...

forum. Ehrsam served as Coinbase's first President. In January 2017, he announced he was leaving the company, but would remain on its board. He also reportedly still owned 8.9% of Coinbase stock as of April 2021, and was assigned to the company's audit committee before its April 2021 public offering.

Paradigm

In 2018, Ehrsam co-founded cryptocurrency investment firm Paradigm with former

Sequoia Capital Sequoia Capital Operations, LLC is an American venture capital firm headquartered in Menlo Park, California, specializing in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. the firm had appro ...

investor Matt Huang. They founded the company to invest in cryptocurrencies and the companies that focus on that market, and became the firm's managing partners. In October, 2023, Ehrsam stepped down from his managing partner role at Paradigm and announced he will continue to act as a general partner.

Recognition

*2013 – Ehrsam was named to TIME Magazine's list of 30 People Under 30 Changing the World *2014 – Ehrsam was named to Forbes' 30 under 30 list at age 25

References