Learn all about the man behind Coinbase, the first crypto exchange to go public in “Who Is Brian Armstrong?” Covered: Early Life Early Projects Experience With Coinbase INTRODUCTION Brian Armstrong is an American businessman and the co-founder and CEO of Coinbase, one of the largest and most popular Bitcoin exchanges in the world. Coinbase as […] The post Who Is Brian Armstrong? appeared first on CryptosRus.

Who Is Brian Armstrong?

Learn all about the man behind Coinbase, the first crypto exchange to go public in “Who Is Brian Armstrong?”

Covered:

  • Early Life
  • Early Projects
  • Experience With Coinbase

INTRODUCTION

Brian Armstrong is an American businessman and the co-founder and CEO of Coinbase, one of the largest and most popular Bitcoin exchanges in the world. Coinbase as a leading cryptocurrency company provides exchange, brokerage, and custody services to approximately 35 million+ customers in over 100 countries. The company has raised over $500 million from some of the leading investors like Tiger Global Management, Union Square Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and the New York Stock exchange.

EARLY LIFE

Brian Armstrong was born on 25th January 1983 in San Jose, California. While in high school, he developed an aptitude for computer technology. Brian was still in high school when he got his first few paying jobs. His early career also includes working as a developer for IBM and as a consultant at Deloitte. Brian attended Rice University from 2001 to 2006. He graduated in 2005 with a double major in Computer science and Economics. Afterward, he decided to pursue a Master’s degree in Computer Science and obtained it in 2006.

EARLY PROJECTS

While Brian was still a junior at Rice University, he spent four months as an Intern Team Lead at Lea. Utilizing his knowledge of Java, he designed a number of Java-based tools for Network Attached Storage devices. In August 2003, Brian confounded UniversityTutor.com together with John Nelson. An online directory of tutors UniversityTutor.com is a global marketplace where parents and students can locate independent tutors. It enabled tutors to create a tutoring enterprise and offer their services to a host of potential student clients. Brian remained its CEO for a period of eight years from August 2003 to May 2012. The company was eventually acquired in 2014 by Johnson Educational Technologies.

In May 2011, Brian started working at Airbnb as a software engineer. He was still involved in UniversityTutor.com while working with Airbnb. It was this time when he was exposed to payment systems in the 190 countries Airbnb operated at that time. He also observed the difficulties of sending money to South America. He began working on weekends and nights to write code in Ruby and JavaScript for buying and storing cryptocurrency. By 2012 he entered the Y Combinator startup accelerator and received one $150,000 investment which he used to create Coinbase. At Airbnb, he worked for a period of just over one year and left in the June of 2012 after establishing Coinbase.

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TIME AT COINBASE

Brian first came across the Bitcoin white paper published under the alias Satoshi Nakamoto, in the Christmas of 2012.  In June 2012, he founded Coinbase.com which is an online cryptocurrency exchange with Fred Ehrsam. Brian had earlier recounted his realization of the fact that there had not been a lot of Bitcoin transaction marketplaces and that is what led him to the creation of Coinbase. Brian always had a passion for establishing businesses ever since he was in High School where he had gone over a lot of business ideas regularly with his friends. He also gained a lot of experience from mistakes which in turn served him well as he began to consider more serious struggles for Coinbase.

With his double major in Computer Science and Economics as well as his experience with Computer programming, he was well equipped for his inception into the tech-startup arena. Having discovered Bitcoin, he paved the way for developing a marketplace for the newly emerging cryptocurrency. Coinbase was envisioned to be a Bitcoin marketplace that would enable people to purchase cryptocurrency, as this was a time when cryptocurrency was not the phenomenon it is today. The full launch of the company was in October of 2012 when it began providing Bitcoin buying and selling services via bank transfers.

INVESTORS

Over the years, many investors have invested in Coinbase which has enabled Brian and his team to rapidly expand the size of their company. In the summer of 2012, Brian and Fred enrolled Coinbase for the Y Combinator start-up incubator program which is famous for having invested in a number of popular startups like Dropbox, Airbnb, Reddit, and Weebly. In 2013, the company was also able to secure a $5 million Series A investment from Union Square Ventures (USV). By the same year in December, USV in association with Ribbit Capital and Andreessen Horowitz invested a total of $25 million in Coinbase. In 2015, the company became the first Bitcoin exchange to be a recipient of direct investment from a major financial institution.

Similarly, New York Stock Exchange and Draper Fisher Jurvetson invested in unison a total of $75 million in Coinbase. In 2016, Coinbase started to offer its exchange services on GDAX (Global Digital Asset Exchange). In 2017, Coinbase was issued a BitLicense by the New York State DFS (Department of Financial Services) which allowed the company to offer virtual currency trading services in New York. In 2018, Brian also launched Givecrypto.org, a nonprofit with the mission to financially empower people by distributing cryptocurrency globally. Brian along with his team members have been able to create what has now become the first Bitcoin “Unicorn”. Throughout his life, Brian has maintained a strong interest in the technology market and has worked actively in developing solutions for the industry.

Recommended: Believe It Or Not, Brian Armstrong Used To Hate Altcoins

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