Who owns Coinbase?

Coinbase is owned by its shareholders, since its parent company, Coinbase Global, Inc., is publicly traded. Ownership and control are not the same thing, though. Through a dual-class share structure, co-founder and chief executive Brian Armstrong controls a majority of shareholder votes, which makes Coinbase a controlled company under Nasdaq rules.

Who owns Coinbase Global?

Anyone holding its Class A stock owns part of the company. Our guide on whether Coinbase is a public company covers the listing, the COIN ticker and its S&P 500 membership.

There is a second class of stock. According to the description of securities filed with Coinbase's 2025 annual report, Class A shares carry one vote each and Class B shares carry 20 votes each, and the two usually vote together. Only Class A is listed on Nasdaq. Class B shares turn into Class A when they are sold or transferred, apart from permitted transfers such as to family trusts.

Because each Class B share has 20 times the votes of a Class A share, a holder can control shareholder decisions while owning well under half of all shares, a point the filing itself makes. Coinbase's yearly proxy statement, the latest filed in April 2026, is where the holdings of directors, officers and large shareholders are listed.

Who controls Coinbase?

Brian Armstrong does, in practice. The 2026 proxy says that because Armstrong controls a majority of the outstanding voting power, Coinbase is a controlled company, which means it could skip some board independence rules, although it says it keeps them anyway. Armstrong and his affiliated entities first passed a majority of the voting power in May 2021.

This control has limits written into the charter. All Class B shares convert to Class A if Armstrong and his affiliates fall below 25% of the Class B shares they held on April 1, 2021, after a board-set delay, or on his death or disability. If his group drops below a majority of votes, the board returns to three staggered classes of directors.

Who are the Coinbase founders?

Armstrong, a former Airbnb engineer, applied to Y Combinator in March 2012 with a company then called Bitbank, and it joined the summer 2012 batch. Fred Ehrsam, a former Goldman Sachs trader, joined as co-founder. Wikipedia dates the founding to June 2012.

Who owns Coinbase Wallet and Base?

Coinbase does. Coinbase Wallet is Coinbase's self-custody app. It was renamed Base App and, on September 10, 2026, Coinbase said it was going back to the Coinbase Wallet name, Forklog reported. The difference from a Coinbase account is explained in Coinbase vs Coinbase Wallet.

Base is an Ethereum layer 2 network that Coinbase incubated and launched in 2023, created by Jesse Pollak. It launched without a native token. In September 2025, Pollak and Armstrong said Base was beginning to explore one, with no firm plans, according to The Block. More on the network is in what is Base.

Company structures can change, so the latest SEC filings are the most reliable record of who owns and controls Coinbase.