Coinbase is a major American cryptocurrency exchange founded in 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam. With over 100 million users, it stands as the largest U.S.-based crypto exchange and a leading global Bitcoin custodian as of 2024. Operating in over 100 countries, Coinbase manages significant digital assets, including a notable percentage of the world's Bitcoin and staked Ether supply. It plays a pivotal role in the cryptocurrency market by offering a platform for trading and storing digital currencies.
In June 2012, Brian Armstrong founded Coinbase after enrolling in the Y Combinator program. He received a $150,000 cash infusion. Fred Ehrsam later joined as co-founder.
In October 2012, Coinbase launched services to buy and sell bitcoins through bank transfers.
In 2012, Coinbase was founded by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam.
In May 2013, Coinbase received a US$5 million Series A investment led by Fred Wilson from Union Square Ventures.
In January 2014, Coinbase Global, Inc. was incorporated in Delaware as a holding company for Coinbase and its subsidiaries.
In January 2015, Coinbase received a US$75 million investment and launched Coinbase Exchange, a U.S.-based bitcoin exchange for professional traders.
In May 2016, Coinbase rebranded the Coinbase Exchange, changing the name to Global Digital Asset Exchange (GDAX).
In March 2017, Coinbase obtained BitLicense and was licensed to trade in Ethereum and Litecoin from the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS).
Customers who purchased cryptocurrency on their exchange between January 22 and February 11, 2018, could have been affected by errors causing overcharges
On February 16, 2018, Coinbase admitted that some customers were overcharged in error for credit and debit purchases of cryptocurrencies, caused by changes to merchant category codes by banks and card issuers.
On February 23, 2018, Coinbase informed approximately 13,000 affected customers that the company would provide their taxpayer ID, name, birth date, address, and historical transaction records from 2013 to 2015 to the IRS within 21 days.
In March 2018, it was reported that the number of monthly customer complaints against Coinbase jumped more than 100 percent in January of that year, to 889, with more than 400 of those categorized as "money was not available when promised".
On March 26, 2018, Coinbase announced their intention to add support for Ethereum ERC-20 tokens.
On April 5, 2018, Coinbase announced the formation of an early-stage venture fund, Coinbase Ventures, focusing on investment into blockchain- and cryptocurrency-related companies.
From 2018 to 2023, the company received an "F" rating from the Better Business Bureau due to poor customer service.
In April 2019, Reuters estimated that Coinbase's global revenue totalled "around US$520 million" in 2018.
In January 2019, Coinbase stopped all trading on Ethereum Classic due to a suspicion of an attack on the network.
In April 2019, a U.K. corporate filing stated that Coinbase's non-U.S. revenue grew 20 percent to €153 million (US$173 million) in 2018 resulting in a net profit of €6.6 million.
In May 2019, Emilie Choi was promoted to the role of president and chief operating officer.
In 2021, Coinbase reported a net income of US$322 million after posting a loss in 2019.
In June 2023, the SEC announced it was suing Coinbase, alleging that the company had been acting as an unregistered broker, exchange and clearing agency since 2019, and also alleged that Coinbase never registered its staking service as required by U.S. securities laws.
In May 2020, Coinbase announced it was shifting completely to remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic and acquired Tagomi, a digital asset trading firm, for between US$75 and US$100 million.
In October 2020, Coinbase brokered a voluntary agreement with the British regulator Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) where Coinbase agreed to not accept new users that the regulator considered high-risk.
In 2021, Coinbase reported net revenue of US$1.14 billion in 2020, up from US$483 million the previous year.
In March 2021, Coinbase agreed to pay US$6.5 million to settle regulatory claims that it had reported misleading information about its trading volumes.
In March 2021, Coinbase was under review by the Office of Foreign Assets Control and announced establishing a business presence in India, hiring employees for IT services and planning to open a physical office in Hyderabad.
On April 14, 2021, Coinbase became a public company on the Nasdaq exchange via a direct stock listing, closing at US$328.28 per share on its first day of trading.
In April 2021, Coinbase reported a nine-fold increase in first-quarter revenue, to US$1.8 billion, up from US$90.6 million the previous year, attributed to the increase in the price of bitcoin.
In December 2021, CNBC reported that Coinbase froze the cryptocurrency GYEN due to a sudden price spike, resulting in many traders losing money.
From 2021 to 2025, Coinbase operated as a remote-first company and has no physical headquarters.
In 2021, as part of its SEC filing to go public, Coinbase reported 43 million verified users, 7,000 institutions, and 115,000 ecosystem partners in over 100 countries.
In February 2022, Coinbase's commercial during Super Bowl LVI involved a QR code that directed viewers to the company's webpage.
In April 2022, Coinbase began operations in India, initially relying on Unified Payments Interface (UPI). After a statement by the National Payments Corporation of India, Coinbase suspended most of its business in India.
In May 2022, Coinbase-backed Mara successfully raised US$23 million with the goal of establishing an African cryptocurrency exchange.
In a May 2022 Form 10-Q filing, Coinbase stated that "because custodially held crypto assets may be considered to be the property of a bankruptcy estate, in the event of a bankruptcy, the crypto assets we hold in custody on behalf of our customers could be subject to bankruptcy proceedings and such customers could be treated as our general unsecured creditors".
On June 14, 2022, Coinbase announced it would be laying off approximately 18% of its workforce, which equated to about 1,100 full-time jobs, because of a global downturn in cryptocurrencies and services.
On July 22, 2022, a former Coinbase product manager, Ishan Wahi, along with his brother Nikhil Wahi and a friend, Sameer Ramani, were charged in the first-ever insider trading case in cryptocurrency by prosecutors for the Southern District of New York and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Ishan Wahi allegedly shared information about upcoming token listings with Nikhil Wahi and Ramani, who then used this information to make trades for an alleged illicit profit over US$1.5 million.
In August 2022, Coinbase announced a partnership with BlackRock, enabling BlackRock clients to use their Aladdin investment management system to oversee their exposure to bitcoin and other portfolio assets, and to facilitate trading on Coinbase's exchange.
In October 2022, Coinbase partnered with Google Cloud Platform, allowing Google's customers to use cryptocurrencies supported by Coinbase Commerce to pay for cloud services. Coinbase also agreed to move its data applications from Amazon Web Services to Google Cloud.
On January 10, 2023, Coinbase announced it would lay off around 950 employees, incurring restructuring expenses of up to US$163 million. Brian Armstrong cited the possibility of "further contagion" following the collapse of the FTX exchange and said Coinbase would be "shutting down several projects where we have a lower probability of success".
In January 2023, Coinbase faced significant regulatory penalties. The New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) fined Coinbase US$50 million for allegedly violating anti-money laundering laws and required an additional US$50 million investment in its compliance program. The Dutch Central Bank (DNB) also fined Coinbase €3.3 million for operating without proper registration in the Netherlands.
Ishan Wahi originally pleaded not guilty but entered a guilty plea on February 7, 2023 in insider trading case.
In February 2023, Coinbase launched its own layer 2 blockchain on Ethereum, based on MIT-licensed OP Stack of layer-2 blockchain Optimism.
On 22 March 2023, Coinbase received a Wells notice from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) signalling that the SEC intended to begin an enforcement action over Coinbase's staking products. Coinbase responded by calling the investigation "cursory", and stated that it would continue to operate as usual.
In April 2023, Coinbase announced that its Coinbase Bermuda division had been licensed to operate cryptocurrencies in Bermuda.
On May 9, 2023, Ishan Wahi was sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to forfeit various crypto assets that he received in connection with the scheme.
In June 2023, the SEC announced it was suing Coinbase, alleging that the company had been acting as an unregistered broker, exchange and clearing agency since 2019, and also alleged that Coinbase never registered its staking service as required by U.S. securities laws.
In July 2023, Coinbase leased 40,000 sq.ft. of office space in Mountain View, California. This followed the company's prior closing of its San Francisco headquarters amid its transformation to become a remote-first and headquarterless company.
Between October 2020 and October 2023, Coinbase unintentionally onboarded a number of customers who were classified as high-risk, leading to a fine in July 2024.
Although Coinbase offers more than 250 different cryptocurrencies to U.S. customers as of 2023, it does not trade Monero and other cryptocurrencies with enhanced anonymity protection due to the know your customer (KYC) requirements in accordance with anti–money laundering regulations.
From 2018 to 2023, the company received an "F" rating from the Better Business Bureau due to poor customer service.
In July 2024, Coinbase's U.K. branch was fined £3.5 million by the British regulator Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for breaching a voluntary agreement established in October 2020. The FCA stated that Coinbase onboarded high-risk customers, increasing the risk of money laundering. Coinbase responded that the affected customers represented 0.34% of all onboarded customers.
In December 2024, Coinbase added Apple Pay support to its Onramp platform (formerly known as Coinbase Pay), enabling users of third-party apps to fund crypto purchases directly through Apple’s payment service. The cryptocurrencies supported included bitcoin, ether, Dogecoin and others present on the crypto exchange.
As of 2024, Coinbase is the largest U.S. based cryptocurrency exchange and the world's biggest bitcoin custodian, with over 100 million users.
In its 2024 annual report, Coinbase said it was managing digital assets worth US$404 billion on its platform.
In February 2025, the SEC dismissed its lawsuit against Coinbase, putting an end to a legal battle between the two.
In March 2025, Coinbase said it was the largest node operator on the Ethereum network, controlling 11.42% of all staked Ether (ETH).
On May 8, 2025, Coinbase announced the acquisition of Deribit, a Dubai-based cryptocurrency derivatives exchange, for $700 million in cash and $2.2 billion worth of Coinbase stock. The acquisition is the largest of its kind in the cryptocurrency industry.
On May 15, 2025, Coinbase announced it expected the cyber attack from earlier that May would cost the company up to $400 million. It was reported that Coinbase would reimburse customers up to $400 million.
In May 2025, Coinbase disclosed an extortion attempt where cybercriminals bribed rogue overseas support agents to steal customer data for social engineering attacks. Coinbase refused to pay the $20 million ransom that was asked and instead offered a $20 million reward for information leading to the attackers' conviction.
In May 2025, Coinbase disclosed that they had been targeted by a significant cyber attack that could cost the company between $180m and $400m, after hackers breached account data belonging to a “small subset” of its users. Coinbase said it received an email from an unknown threat actor on May 11, claiming access to sensitive customer details and internal company documents.
On May 19, 2025, Coinbase was included in the S&P 500 index.
As of 2025, Coinbase is the world's largest custodian of bitcoin, holding over 12% of all bitcoin in existence. It also holds over 11% of all staked Ether and other digital assets like solana.
As of 2025, Coinbase maintains an "A+" rating by the Better Business Bureau.
As of 2025, Coinbase operates the largest U.S. based cryptocurrency exchange with over 108 million customers. It offers products for retail and institutional cryptocurrency investors, and other users including merchants and small businesses.
In 2025, Coinbase leased a large office space in San Francisco to serve as a physical headquarters and operations hub. The company also announced a large office opening in Charlotte, North Carolina to serve as its "Center of Excellence."
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