Cryptocurrencies

Crypto Boom Vaults Coinbase Founder Into Ranks of Mega-Rich

Armstrong among world’s 500 richest with firm set to go public
Ex-Goldman trader Ehrsam’s stake worth more than $2 billion

Brian Armstrong, co-founder and chief executive officer of Coinbase Inc.

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By Benjamin Stupples

February 26, 2021 at 5:34 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

Working at Airbnb Inc. allowed Brian Armstrong to see the difficulties of handling payments from around the world.

That led to the idea of creating a digital wallet to hold Bitcoin, which later became Coinbase Global Inc. The biggest U.S. crypto exchange is now going public in a direct listing, and Armstrong is one of the biggest winners.