Short answers, pulled from the story.
Coinbase was founded in June 2012 by Brian Armstrong, a former Airbnb engineer, and Fred Ehrsam, a former Goldman Sachs trader. Armstrong enrolled in the Y Combinator startup incubator and received an initial US$150,000 cash infusion before Ehrsam joined as co-founder.
As of 2025, Coinbase has over 108 million customers and operates in more than 100 countries. It is the largest U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange and the world's biggest bitcoin custodian, holding nearly 12% of all bitcoin in existence.
Coinbase became a public company on the Nasdaq exchange on the 14th of April 2021, via a direct stock listing. Nasdaq set a reference price of US$250 per share before trading, giving the company an estimated value of US$47 billion. Shares closed at US$328.28 on the first day of trading.
In June 2023, the SEC sued Coinbase alleging the company had been operating as an unregistered broker, exchange, and clearing agency since 2019, and that its staking service was never properly registered. The SEC sought to permanently bar Coinbase from those activities. The lawsuit was dismissed in February 2025 following the election of Donald Trump.
On the 22nd of July 2022, former Coinbase product manager Ishan Wahi was charged in the first-ever cryptocurrency insider trading case for allegedly sharing confidential token-listing information with his brother Nikhil Wahi and friend Sameer Ramani, who made an alleged illicit profit of more than US$1.5 million. Nikhil Wahi was sentenced to ten months in prison on the 10th of January 2023, and Ishan Wahi was sentenced to two years in prison on the 9th of May 2023.
In May 2025, cybercriminals bribed overseas Coinbase support agents to steal customer personal and account data, then demanded a US$20 million ransom. Coinbase refused to pay and instead offered a US$20 million reward for information leading to the attackers' conviction. On the 15th of May 2025, the company said the incident was expected to cost up to US$400 million.