An expert, story-driven account of how Coinbase won the cryptocurrency
game and set itself up to lead the future of banking and
blockchain-based trading. This is the story of the people who made
Coinbase, per PitchBook, "one of the most valuable startups in the
US," including the stoic, preppy founder and CEO Brian Armstrong and the
bitcoin-obsessed former lumberjack Olaf Carlson-Wee, who turned their
backs on the first generation of wild-eyed Bitcoin prophets to build
something more profound and practical -- a company poised to be the next
generation's Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan Chase. Founded in 2012, Coinbase
today processes billions of dollars' worth of cryptocurrency every week
and has more customers than long-time investment giants Fidelity and
Charles Schwab; what Google is to search and Uber is to ride-sharing,
Coinbase is to cryptocurrency.
Ranging from Coinbase's earliest days and the ensuing crypto-mania to
the current battle between Silicon Valley and Wall Street for the center
of finance, Kings of Crypto uses Coinbase to explore and explain the
larger, over-arching disruption and future of finance.
Jeff John Roberts covers IP, blockchain, and cyber security for Fortune
and previously reported on technology for Reuters and Gigaom. He is
uniquely positioned to report the financial and legal aspects of the
Coinbase story given his background as a lawyer and time as a
Knight-Bagehot Fellow at Columbia Business School. In 2018, his work on
blockchain for Fortune received a national honor from the Society of
American Business Editors and Writers.
