How the original Coinbase founders clashed: Bitcoin purity versus mainstream | Hacker News Reader

How the original Coinbase founders clashed: Bitcoin purity versus mainstream

coinnounce.com

The custodial vs non-custodial wallet debate personified by a tale of two founders. As someone who worked in the Ethereum space for ages it's interesting to see that this dichotomy ripped apart these two in the same way that it seems to create two camps in crypto: easy adoption vs purism. I can only imagine the quantity of customer service emails that would've been sat in a Reeves-headed Coinbase inbox with the subject line "HELP: FORGOT MY PASSWORD;" all short stories of orphaned assets forever sat on the blockchain, linked to an address that will never be picked back up again.

Yes, very interesting founder breakup story which I always wondered about. These stories are so often untold. I actually talked quite a bit with Brian as a fellow YC S12 founder, as he struggled to come to terms with losing Ben; who I never met. Brian didn't offer reasons for the breakup and I didn't pry. Fred, the official co-founder joined around 5 months later and after YC.

A good number in the S12 batch thought Brian was onto something huge, but wished him well as he struggled back then. Like, I suspect many readers here, a lot of us had read Satoshi's paper and also viewed Bitcoin as fundamentally important. I wasn't alone in thinking Brian was too early. How wrong I was. Prices rose dramatically in 2013 and USV led by the contrarian/visionary Fred Wilson made their first investment, after a long lapse, into Coinbase [0]. Chops also to Garry Tan who was particularly supportive of more struggling startups during YC S12 and who invested early [1].

I am pleased for Brian and his success; my experiences with him were good. He did no harm endearing himself to our YC batch offering us all some Bitcoin, gratis. Like an idiot, I didn't take up the offer. I was always more interested in disruptive nature of Bitcoin than the investing side of things. That probably explains my rising concerns about the way crypto has developed in recent years. The betting/speculation has no appeal; where's the real value in that? Never mind the growing carbon emissions from proof of work.

[0] https://www.usv.com/writing/2013/05/coinbase/

[1] https://www.coindesk.com/coinbase-stock-first-investor-initi...

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