Thread by @brian_armstrong

1/ Today is a big moment for @coinbase as we become a public company. But it’s also a big one for crypto. This all started with the Bitcoin whitepaper 12 years ago, a deceptively simple 9 page document by Satoshi Nakamoto that ignited a global movement. bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

2/ The Coinbase journey started when I read the Satoshi whitepaper while I was home for Thanksgiving in 2010. As I read it, I realized that crypto had the power to unlock a future where economic freedom was a reality for everyone.

3/ This has driven me ever since as I believe creating more economic freedom is one of the biggest meta problems of our time. It has so many positive downstream effects in society. blog.coinbase.com/how-digital-cu…

4/ While the Coinbase app has evolved a lot since then (It was first called Bitbank until I learned that “bank” carries a very specific legal, regulatory definition!), the mission is the same: to increase economic freedom in the world.

5/ After reading it, I started coding an early prototype of Coinbase on nights and weekends, and began attending early bitcoin meetups around the Bay Area. Eventually I was accepted at @YCombinator and got the courage to quit my job @Airbnb to go pursue this crazy idea.

6/ It’s hard to overstate how bad of an idea everyone thought Coinbase was. Friends in tech said they didn’t get it or that it was a scam. I had a lot of self doubt personally, and thought maybe I was crazy for being so interested in it.

7/ I’m forever thankful to @paulg, @sama, @garrytan and @ycombinator for giving me a chance and guiding me. Their $150k first check helped me believe in myself and gave me the courage to quit my job and really try building a company. It was the first legitimizer of a crazy idea.

8/ Here’s @paulg helping me practice my first demo day pitch to investors at YCombinator

9/ The next decision I had to make probably had the most impact on Coinbase today: my choice of cofounder. I needed someone that I could trust implicitly, balance my strengths and weaknesses, and share my vision for crypto and economic freedom.

10/ After meeting with more than 50 possible partners (it’s a lot like dating), I met @FEhrsam through Reddit and we set out to build Coinbase.

11/ Our first office was a small loft in SF’s SoMa district that we quickly outgrew. We had early employees working in the laundry room (between washing cycles), in the bathroom, and the hallways. Some even camped out on the roof.

12/ The hours were long and the work was hard (employees eating and sleeping in the office was not uncommon), but we made it work because we were all bound by a common mission. Many opted to take part of their salary in Bitcoin, including myself.

13/ Our culture was a unique blend. We identified with early cypherpunks but were also willing to do the work necessary to be a regulated financial services company. We’d go from meeting banks to anarchists in a day. We had to bridge the divide and speak both languages.

14/ Fast forward a couple of years and a few crypto cycles, and we knew that for Coinbase to achieve what we set out to achieve, we would have to look beyond the US. Crypto is an inherently global innovation. We needed to be too.

15/ With a passport and a suitcase, @dwr spent months meeting with regulators and banks throughout the UK and EU until we secured our first banking relationship outside the U.S. His work opened the door for the business we have throughout Europe to this day.

16/ But perhaps the most challenging time for Coinbase was in the fall/winter of 2017/18. Fueled by a boom in ICOs, we experienced a surge in trading volumes like nothing we had ever seen before. Virtually overnight, we saw 10x our average volumes.

17/ This was a tough period for the company and our employees. We weren’t meeting our customers’ expectations when it came to site reliability or customer support. We knew we needed to do better. Employees were back to sleeping in the office, pulling 100 hour weeks.

18/ But we got through it, and it made the company and our platform stronger. We discovered our weaknesses and spent the next year hiring an experienced exec team and rearchitecting all our systems. Things improved, but the job is never done as we keep growing.

19/ The cryptoeconomy today is nothing like the ecosystem that existed when we launched Coinbase 9 years ago. And it’s nothing like the ecosystem that will exist 9 years from now.

20/ There’s a saying that the best way to predict the future is to create it. Hopefully we helped make the future happen a little sooner than it otherwise would have in the crypto space.

21/ Looking to the future, we've only accomplished a small fraction of what we set out to do as a company.

22/ Crypto can provide the basics of economic freedom to anyone: property rights, sound money, free trade, and the ability to work how and where they want.

23/ Societies with greater economic freedom have higher GDP growth and life expectancy, less war and corruption, better treatment of the environment, and higher income of the poorest 10% of people in society.

24/ Higher economic freedom correlates with the kind of societies that we all aspire to create. Our job at Coinbase is to help make this future a reality.

25/ As the first major crypto company to publicly list, today is a big day for Coinbase and the cryptoeconomy that we’re a part of. From the bottom of my heart, a huge thank you to all the customers, employees, and investors who helped us get here!

I neglected to mention a number of other very important people at YC - Jessica, Carolynn and Jon Levy (who helped me through some tough situations), Kirsty, Paul Buchheit (who landed some critical advice at the right moment), Harj - and many more.

Such an amazing group really.