Coinbase: What It Does, Who Runs It, Funding and News

Coinbase is a publicly traded crypto company. Its 2025 annual report states its mission as increasing economic freedom in the world, and describes three groups of customers: consumers who hold, invest in or trade crypto, institutions that custody and trade crypto, and developers who build on its Base blockchain and developer platform.

YC's page still sums Coinbase up as a place to buy, sell and manage cryptocurrencies. That remains the core, but by 2026 the Coinbase app also offered stocks and prediction markets, and derivatives made up about $1.03 trillion of its $1.30 trillion trading volume in the second quarter of 2026 (Q2 2026 results). Below: the key facts, leadership, the venture rounds and 2021 listing, then the deals, results and job cuts reported since spring 2025.

Coinbase key facts

Several figures differ by source. YC's page lists Los Angeles as Coinbase's location and a team of 6,112, while the 10-K says Coinbase has no headquarters and reports 4,951 employees at the end of 2025; the filings are the more recent and formal record. YC also gives June 2012 as the founding month, and the 10-K says Coinbase, Inc. was first incorporated in May 2012.

What Coinbase does

Coinbase reports two main kinds of revenue: transaction revenue from trading, $4.1 billion in 2025, and subscription and services revenue, $2.8 billion (Q4 2025 letter). The 10-K groups the business by customer:

• Consumers. Retail customers who hold, invest in or trade crypto, and also stocks, prediction markets and derivatives. Coinbase rolled out stock and ETF trading and US prediction markets in the app, the latter launched with markets supplied by Kalshi (Q4 2025 letter).
• Institutions. Market makers, asset managers, hedge funds and banks that custody and trade crypto or crypto derivatives. Since buying Deribit in 2025, Coinbase describes itself as the global leader in crypto derivatives by open interest and options volume (Q4 2025 letter).
• Developers. Companies and financial institutions that build on Base, a layer 2 network on Ethereum where Coinbase earns fees for processing transactions (sequencer fees), and on the Coinbase Developer Platform (10-K).
• USDC. Circle issues the USDC stablecoin, and under its agreement with Circle, Coinbase earns revenue based on the amount of USDC in circulation, on and off its platform (10-K).

In 2025 Coinbase reported $5.2 trillion of total trading volume, up 156%, revenue of $7.2 billion and net income of $1.26 billion, according to its fourth-quarter shareholder letter. The same letter said it had nearly 1 million paid Coinbase One subscribers and stored about 12% of all crypto globally.

Who runs Coinbase

Brian Armstrong, who co-founded Coinbase, has been Chief Executive Officer and a director since its inception in May 2012 and Chairman since February 2021, according to the 2026 proxy statement. The proxy says he controls a majority of the voting power, which makes Coinbase a "controlled company." It listed these executive officers as of March 31, 2026:

Two of those officers have since left. Paul Grewal stepped down on July 31, 2026, and Coinbase said it expected to appoint Molly Abraham, Vice President, Legal, as General Counsel and Secretary (Form 8-K). Lawrence Brock left on August 17, 2026, and Coinbase said it expected to name Dominique Baillet as Chief People Officer (Form 8-K). On September 29, 2026, Chief Accounting Officer Jennifer Jones said she would retire once a successor takes over (Form 8-K).

Fred Ehrsam, the other co-founder, was Coinbase's President from November 2012 to January 2017 and has been a director since March 2013; he is also a co-founder of the investment firm Paradigm (2026 proxy). The other directors nominated in 2026 were Marc Andreessen, Christa Davies, Kelly Kramer, Chris Lehane, Tobias Lütke, Gokul Rajaram and Fred Wilson, the lead independent director. Paul Clement did not stand for re-election and left the board at the 2026 annual meeting (Form 8-K), and Anthony Armstrong joined it on September 1, 2026 (Form 8-K).

Coinbase funding and listing

Coinbase raised venture money in rounds through 2018 and became public through a direct listing in April 2021, in which existing shares began trading without a new offering. The table lists rounds with published amounts; valuations are as reported at the time.

The running totals are as TechCrunch reported them and can include money from rounds not listed here. Because a direct listing has no underwriters and sells no new shares, the $250 reference price was a guide rather than an offering price; the opening price came from the first auction on Nasdaq.

Coinbase news, 2025 to 2026

• February 28, 2025: Coinbase and the US Securities and Exchange Commission agreed to dismiss the SEC's lawsuit against the company with prejudice, ending the case (10-K).
• May 8, 2025: Coinbase agreed to buy Sentillia B.V., which runs the crypto derivatives exchange Deribit, for $700 million in cash and 10,997,881 Class A shares, subject to adjustments (Form 8-K).
• May 14, 2025: Coinbase disclosed that an attacker had paid support contractors or employees outside the US to take customer data, including names, contact details and government ID images, though not passwords, private keys or funds. It refused a ransom demand and estimated costs of $180 million to $400 million (Form 8-K).
• May 19, 2025: Coinbase joined the S&P 500, replacing Discover Financial Services (S&P Dow Jones Indices).
• August 14, 2025: The Deribit deal closed, at about $2.9 billion in cash and stock (The Block).
• October 21, 2025: Coinbase announced it had acquired Echo, an onchain fundraising platform, for about $375 million (Decrypt).
• December 15, 2025: Coinbase moved its incorporation from Delaware to Texas, without changing its business or management (Form 8-K).
• February 12, 2026: Full-year 2025 results: revenue of $7.2 billion and net income of $1.26 billion, with a fourth-quarter net loss of $667 million (Q4 letter).
• May 5, 2026: Coinbase announced a restructuring cutting about 700 jobs, about 14% of its staff, at an estimated cost of $50 million to $60 million, citing market conditions and the AI era (Form 8-K).
• July 30, 2026: Second-quarter revenue fell 19% from a year earlier to $1.22 billion, with a net loss of $359.5 million. Coinbase reported a record 10.3% share of crypto trading volume and said prediction markets had passed $100 million in annualized revenue (Q2 results).