Coinbase Generated Nearly $2 Billion in Trading Fees Since 2012

At Vanity Fair’s New Establishment Summit, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said that Coinbase has generated close to $2 billion in trading fees since it launched in 2012.

On Oct. 23, the co-founder and CEO of major United States cryptocurrency exchange and wallet provider Coinbase told Vanity Fair that technology has always been the focus of Coinbase, which, in part, is the reason why the company has remained profitable. 

Coinbase has been profitable since 2017 and has generated close to $2 billion in trading commissions since the company launched back in 2012. Armstrong added:

“Most of these profits we’re plowing back into the business to create new products. I sort of think of us as the anti-unicorn unicorn [...] I want Coinbase to be a company of repeatable innovation.”

US lawmakers should embrace Libra

Armstrong also said that he does not know why regulators’ reactions to the planned launch of Facebook’s Libra were so negative in the United States. “I’d really like to see the U.S. embrace this area of innovation,” he said, adding:

“There are a lot of people who are unbanked in the world, who are underbanked [...] My hope is the U.S. embraces this kind of innovation, even if it comes from a company like Facebook that they’re not necessarily very happy with.”

Coinbase is one of the 21 remaining companies that are part of the Libra Association, which has been under scrutiny by lawmakers across the world for its potential to jeopardize user privacy and flout regulatory rules. Recently, Libra lost seven high-profile participants, including Visa, eBay and Mastercard.

Armstrong criticizes United States lawmakers

Armstrong had previously criticized U.S. senators for asking Stripe, Mastercard and Visa to leave the Libra Association. After the payment giants were apparently pressured into leaving by U.S. Senators Brian Schatz and Sherrod Brown, Armstrong said:

“Something feels very un-American about this. Two senators writing to Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe to ask them to withdraw from Libra.”