The 'Brilliant Asshole' Who Almost Blew Up Coinbase - Ep.126

Jeff Roberts, staff writer at Fortune and author of the recent Audible book, “Kings of Crypto: Coinbase and the Coming Disruption of Finance,” discusses Coinbase's past, present and future. In this episode, we cover: 

when Coinbase duped Apple with its app and eventually got kicked out of the App Store

when Coinbase's hot wallet got hacked

how CEO Brian Armstrong handled challenges like the Bitcoin block size debate and an IRS summons on all its customers' activities for years

how it handled the competition from Binance

why that led to "screaming in the board room" 

the "complete mercenary" and "brilliant asshole" who tore the leadership ranks apart and led to a number of departures by top execs

why Brian and JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon met privately

where Coinbase goes from here

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Thank you to our sponsors! 

Crypto.com: https://crypto.com

Nexo: https://nexo.io

Episode links: 

Jeff Roberts: https://twitter.com/jeffjohnroberts

Kings of Crypto on Audible: https://www.amazon.com/Kings-of-Crypto/dp/B085PY7S7H

Harvard Business Review edition: https://www.amazon.com/Kings-Crypto-Startups-Cryptocurrency-Silicon-ebook/dp/B085TRJY8X

Jeff’s interview with Coinbase cofounder Fred Ehrsam at Consensus: Distributed: https://www.coindesk.com/video/the-kings-of-crypto-an-inside-look-at-the-history-of-coinbase 

JPMorgan banks Coinbase: https://www.wsj.com/articles/jpmorgan-extends-banking-services-to-bitcoin-exchanges-11589281201

Brian Brooks becoming acting comptroller of the Office of the Currency: https://www.coindesk.com/a-former-coinbase-lawyer-is-about-to-become-acting-head-of-us-bank-regulator

Coinbase going remote-first: https://blog.coinbase.com/post-covid-19-coinbase-will-be-a-remote-first-company-cdac6e621df7

Links from news recap:

https://unchainedpodcast.com/90-million-down-the-toilet/