Coinbase Global, Inc. COIN Chief Executive

What Brian Armstrong says in public, and what their own SEC filings show they own.

Brian Armstrong

Brian Armstrong

CEO & Chairman · Coinbase Global, Inc.

Co-founded Coinbase in 2012. Prominent crypto advocate and vocal on regulatory issues.

@brian_armstrong
What they own

Ownership

Skin in the game
38/ 70
Level 3Stakeholder

Armstrong owns about 10% of Coinbase Global, Inc., worth $4.82B at the last close.

SEC filings
154
Stake 25.8M reported shares ≈ 9.8% of shares outstanding — no 13G on file, so an estimate 26/35
Founder Not assessed — whether they founded the company has not been researched Not assessed
Tenure No start date on record, so tenure scores nothing 0/10
Track record Not assessed — their prior companies have not been researched Not assessed
Direction No open-market buys or sales in the last year 5/15
Discipline 2 late Form 4s in 154 filings 7/10

Nobody has researched this person's career yet, so founder and track record are left out of the score and of the total above.

Score = stake band (35) + founder (15) + tenure (10) + track record (15) + 12-month direction (−10…15) + filing discipline (10). An axis we have not researched is left out of the score and of the total it is shown over. Every input links to a filing or to our own research; the bands are ours.

Reported · Forms 3, 4, 5 25.8M Every lot on the person's own filings, as of Jul 16, 2025
Paper trail 2 late filings Form 4 covering a 2021-11-18 gift in Coinbase Global, Inc. was filed 2021-12-02, 9 business days later; Section 16 allows two.
Reported Coinbase Global, Inc. shares Forms 3, 4 and 5 · as of 2025-07-16
010M20M30M40M 20212022202320242025 25.8M
How the stake is held
SecurityHeld viaShares
Class B Common StockThe Brian Armstrong Living Trust22,881,225
Class B Common StockThe Ehrsam 2014 Irrevocable Trust2,958,393
Class A Common StockThe Brian Armstrong Living Trust526
Reported as of 2025-07-1625,840,144
Held directly
0%
Vehicles
2 trusts or entities
Share classes
2
Last filing
Jul 17, 2025
Every issuer Brian Armstrong files as an insider of
CompanyRoleReportedBeneficial% of class
COIN Coinbase Global, Inc. This page Chairman and CEO 26M
2025-07-16		 — —

Reported is every lot on the person's own Forms 3, 4 and 5 — direct and through trusts. Beneficial is the figure stated on the latest Schedule 13D/G cover page, which can exclude shares the person disclaims and include options exercisable within 60 days, so the two are never added together.

Paper trail

154 filings under CIK 0001856705 · captured 2026-09-05 · All filings on EDGAR ↗

On the record with shareholders

Earnings calls

  1. Q2 2026 Jul 30, 2026 Armstrong spent his remarks arguing that Coinbase has stopped being a leveraged bet on the bitcoin price: 88% of net revenue now comes from something other than bitcoin spot trading, subscription and services was 48% of net revenue, and trading share hit an all-time high 10.3% in a quarter when spot market volume fell 25%. He confirmed the Circle agreement will auto-renew in August on unchanged terms, and put the next leg of the story on agentic finance — more AI agents than humans, none of whom can open a bank account, transacting in USDC on Base through x402. Pressed on whether machines that optimise for price would erode Coinbase's trust moat, he argued agents will pick infrastructure the way engineers pick a cloud vendor. He was equally relaxed about a stalled CLARITY Act — "business as usual for Coinbase" — and about rivals launching their own chains, which he expects to fragment and then consolidate the way stablecoins did. Read the call · 9 quotes →
In their own words

Podcasts, interviews & articles

10 recorded appearances

2026

Podcast People by WTF (Nikhil Kamath) · Jul 16, 2026 · 2h 19m

Brian Armstrong: Bitcoin, Banks & The New Rules Of Money | Nikhil Kamath | People by WTF

Argued crypto from first principles to a self-described skeptic, and addressed India specifically: adoption scale, tax policy, remittances, tokenized gold, and the case for a regulated digital rupee. Also warned against pre-emptive AI regulation.

Watch or read →
Podcast In Good Company (Norges Bank Investment Management) · Mar 17, 2026 · 45 min

Brian Armstrong - CEO of Coinbase | Podcast | In Good Company | Norges Bank Investment Management

Told Nicolai Tangen stablecoins could grow 100x to 1000x, said AI agents are already transacting on-chain and will become crypto's biggest users, and described how Coinbase pushed back against political headwinds.

Watch or read →

2025

Who else runs a company like this one

Every CEO we track →
Anthony Noto Anthony Noto SoFi Technologies, Inc. (SOFI) Vlad Tenev Vlad Tenev Robinhood Markets Inc. (HOOD) Max Levchin Max Levchin Affirm Holdings, Inc. (AFRM) Paul Gu Upstart Holdings, Inc. (UPST) Enrique Lores Enrique Lores PayPal Holdings, Inc. (PYPL)