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Blockchain LabTHE VENTURE STUDIO

NASDAQ: COIN · PUBLIC

Coinbase

Coinbase is the listed U.S. crypto platform: an exchange that has spent four years trying to become a set of always-on infrastructure businesses.

You are deciding whether to join a profitable-on-average, loss-making-this-quarter public company, on a named internal platform, with liquid stock and a headcount that has already been cut once in 2026.

The company you would actually join

Blockchain Lab analysis

Public reporting and the employer’s own releases. Not a relationship with Blockchain Lab. Not a credit opinion.

Founded
2012, by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam.
Base
Remote-first. The corporate address used on filings is One Madison Avenue, Suite 2400, New York. Reincorporated from Delaware to Texas, stockholder consent 4 November 2025.
Status
Public since the 14 April 2021 direct listing. About 4,951 full-time employees as of the 31 December 2025 figure carried on Yahoo Finance.
People
Brian Armstrong, co-founder, chairman and CEO. Emilie Choi, president and COO. Alesia Haas, CFO. Fred Ehrsam remains a director. He co-founded Paradigm and is not the operator.

Coinbase is the cleanest company on this desk to underwrite, and it is still a cyclical. Fiscal 2025 did $7.18 billion of revenue and roughly $1.26 billion of net income. The quarter ended June 2026 did $1.22 billion and lost about $359 million. If your offer assumes last year's bonus, read this year's quarter. Trading is no longer 90 percent of the story, which is why these roles exist: networks, nodes, wallets, wrapped assets such as cbBTC, and fiat payments rails are internal platforms with their own on-call, not features of the candle chart.

The corporate form changed. Stockholders acted by written consent on 4 November 2025 to reincorporate from Delaware to Texas. The company describes itself as remote-first and, in some 2026 descriptions, as having no headquarters. That is not the same as 'anyone, anywhere'. Every role stored here says Remote - USA except Product Security, which says Remote - Canada. Those words are the eligibility constraint. A London candidate should not apply to them and hope.

Secondary coverage in 2026 described a workforce reduction of about 14 percent, on the order of 700 people, in May 2026. We did not re-derive that from a filing in this pass. Ask the recruiter whether the team you would join was touched, and what the current on-call load is. Public-company equity is the compensation fact the postings refuse to quantify: bands were not disclosed. None of the six roles states a salary. Do not invent one from levels.fyi in your head and then negotiate against a rumour.

Founders

Brian Armstrong

Co-founder, chairman, CEO

Born 1983. Has run Coinbase since founding. FY2025 reported pay was about $9.71 million, with a much larger exercised-equity figure beside it. The company still concentrates voting power in Class B stock. You are joining his instrument.

Fred Ehrsam

Co-founder and director

Born 1989. Left day-to-day work years ago and built Paradigm. He still files as a director and still sells stock on preset plans. Do not expect him in your design review. Do expect his votes to matter.

What the company sells

Trading

Still the cycle. The share of net revenue from trading has fallen from the 2021 extreme, but a quiet quarter still shows up as a loss.

Subscription and services

Custody, staking, USDC economics, Coinbase One, and prime. This is the line management wants you to believe is the company.

Base and platform engineering

The layer-2 launched in 2023, plus internal blockchain platform teams: networks, nodes, wallets, wrapped assets, payments. The roles on this desk sit here, not on the consumer growth squad.

Capital

FY2025 revenue

$7.18 billion

About +9% on FY2024. Standardised from filings.

FY2025 net income

About $1.26 billion

A real profit year. Not a promise about 2026.

Q2 2026

$1.22 billion revenue, about −$359 million net

Quarter ended June 2026. The cycle is not over.

Market cap

Near $50 billion

About $189 a share on 6 Oct 2026. 52-week range has been wide.

  1. 2012–2021

    Venture, then a direct listing

    About $86 billion at the 14 April 2021 debut

    No new shares were sold in the listing. The reference print and the first trade were not the same number; debut valuations reported in the press clustered from the high tens of billions to around $100 billion depending on the print. Equity raised before the listing is a separate, smaller figure. The company later issued convertible debt, including a May 2021 offering.

  2. 2023–2025

    Operating era, not a round

    Public equity

    Base launched in 2023. Coverage in 2025 described the SEC case as dropped, an S&P 500 inclusion, a MiCA permission, and the Deribit acquisition. Confirm each in the filing that matters to your team. They are not one event.

What should change your mind

  • Cycle. A down quarter cuts the narrative, the bonus, and sometimes the team.
  • Regulation remains a business line. A dropped case is not a statute.
  • Remote-USA and Remote-Canada are different jobs. Geography is not a preference on these postings.
  • Platform scope. 'Blockchain platform' is several teams. The posting title is the team. Read it.

Ask them

  • Which ledger does this team own, and what is the on-call rotation?
  • Was this team part of the 2026 reduction, and is the req a backfill?
  • What is the cash band and the refresh, in writing, before you spend a loop on it?
  • For Canada: which employing entity, and are you expected to overlap U.S. hours?

Sources

If a figure is not in those sources, it is not in this brief on purpose.

Open roles on this desk