20VC: Coinbase's Brian Armstrong on The Rise & Short Term Correction in ICOs, The Regulatory Framework Required For Blockchain To Succeed & How The Rise of Blockchain Disrupts The VC Industry
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 4 August 2017
⏱️ 29 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Brian Armstrong is the Founder & CEO @ Coinbase, the startup that provides the world's most popular way to buy and sell bitcoin, ethereum and litecoin. They have backing from some of the biggest and best in VC having raised over $100m from the likes of Andreesen Horowitz, USV, DFJ and many more incredible investors. As for Brian, prior to Coinbase he was a Software Engineer @ Airbnb and before that founded his own startup, Universitytutor.com
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In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Brian made his way from Airbnb to founding one of the early disruptors in the crypto space with Coinbase?
2.) Doing an 80/20 analysis, what are the 3 fundamental differences between Bitcoin and ethereum? What is Brian's opinion on the scaling path ahead for ethereum? How do the teams behind ethereum and Bitcoin differ and what effect do these differing approaches have?
3.) What is an ICO? Does Brian believe ICOs will be a sustainable method of company financing in the future? What needs to take place to ensure for the continued momentum of ICOs? What have been the biggest surprises of ICOs for Brian?
4.) How does Brian view the regulatory stance around both ICOs and blockchain more generally? What is he concerned will happen? What would be the optimal regulatory framework for the theme to thrive?Â
5.) How does the rise of blockchain disrupt the VC industry? Why does Brian agree with Naval in stating the future will involve the unbundling of money, control and advice from the realms of VC?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Brian’s Fave Book: Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman
Brian’s Fave Blog: Week In Ethereum
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Brian on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We are back on the 20 minute VC with our final episode this week with me, Harry Stebbings, |
| 0:04.0 | and I really want to hear your thoughts on future guests you'd like to see on the show. |
| 0:07.6 | So to send those to me, simply add me on Snap at H. Stebbings with two Bs. |
| 0:11.7 | It'd be awesome to see you there. |
| 0:13.1 | However, to the show today, and as always, the 20 minute VC delivers the most timely and up-to-date content. And with that in mind, I'm thrilled to welcome Brian Armstrong to the hot seat today. |
| 0:21.9 | Brian is the founder and CEO at Coinbase, the startup that provides the world's most popular way |
| 0:26.6 | to buy and sell Bitcoin, Ethereum and Lightcoin. They have backing from some of the biggest and best in VC, |
| 0:32.6 | having raised over $100 million from the likes of Andries and Horrors, USV, DFJ, and many more incredible investors. |
| 0:39.7 | As for Brian, prior to Coinbase, he was a software engineered Airbnb, and before that, founded |
| 0:44.1 | his own startup, university tutor.com. I do also want to say a huge thanks to the fantastic |
| 0:48.6 | Jonathan Downey at Airware for the intro to Brian to date, without which this episode would not |
| 0:52.9 | have been possible. But before we dive into the show today, I want to tell you about WePay. WePay helps online platforms |
| 0:58.8 | increase revenue through integrated payments processing, constant contact, equid, |
| 1:03.2 | and GoFundMe use WePay. Why? Because WePay uniquely helps platforms offer ROI positive, integrated |
| 1:09.2 | payments to their users, Within their UX and without taking |
| 1:12.1 | on fraud and regulatory exposure, others make you trade off between UX friction or fraud, not WePay. |
| 1:17.7 | WePay also offers award-winning support and can even work with your team through Slack or Zendesk. |
| 1:22.5 | Get the payments revenue you want without getting bogged down every time a user has a payments |
| 1:26.8 | question. But don't trust me, |
| 1:28.3 | visit wepay.com forward slash Harry. Oh yes, I have my own URL for a video case study on how |
| 1:33.8 | equid grew its revenue while better serving customers with Wepay. That's weepa.com forward slash |
| 1:38.8 | Harry. You'll also be made eligible for a year of free premium support on wepay.com forward slash |
... |
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