Bitcoin [BTC] whitepaper was one of the reason behind the inception of Coinbase

Brian Armstrong, the Co-Founder and CEO of Coinbase, one of the leading exchange platform in the world and the biggest exchange platform in the U.S, spoke about the inception of Coinbase during an interview with Bloomberg. Along with this, Brian also spoke about his past experience and briefly defined cryptocurrencies.

The CEO of Coinbase joined Airbnb after his year break in Argentina during the time of inflation. According to him, during that timeframe, Airbnb was moving money across 120 countries and Brian witnessed the difficulty of integrating with the global financial system while working in the company.

After which, in December 2010, Brian stumbled upon Bitcoin whitepaper, written by Satoshi Nakamoto. He said:

“I have no idea who he/she or they are, unfortunately. But they definitely captured my imagination when I read it because it talks about how the whole world could have this universal currency that ran on the internet. I felt like it grabbed me, this is the most important thing I’ve read in like 5 years”

Post the reading of the whitepaper, in the year of 2011, Brian attended several early Bitcoin meet-ups in San Francisco. This led to him believing that he was too late for the game because of the existence of Bitcoin exchanges in the early stages itself. Brian stated that the meet-ups were half filled with computer scientist and the other half with “completely crazy people”. This was followed by Brian working on the prototype in the nights and weekends which would eventually become Coinbase.

Furthermore, Brian defines cryptocurrencies as digital money. He adds that cryptocurrency is like money which can be sent around through the internet and Bitcoin is fundamentally a computer science break-through. According to him, it solved a problem which was unresolved. He explained the problem, saying:

“If I’m going to send you a digital dollar, how do I prove to you that I didn’t also send you a copy of the same thing to somebody else because in the digital world it’s really easy to make copies of things like photos or any kind of digital content”

He asserted that the only trusted solution during that timeframe was intermediaries like banks which automatically debit and credit an account to make sure that people don’t double spend money. Brian said that Bitcoin came up with the brilliant solution to the problem. It allowed people to send money and prove that they did not send the money to anyone else without any intermediaries taking fees and slowing the transaction. Bitcoin created a global version of cash or gold which paved the path to transfer value to anyone in the world on a global network.

Brian also spoke about the misconception people have about cryptocurrencies. He explains that stealing cryptocurrency from a wallet is similar to stealing cash from people’s wallet but cryptocurrencies have better properties than traditional cash. This includes instant transfer anywhere in the world which is impossible with cash.

The CEO of Coinbase further stated:

“So there is a number of advantages but there is also… number of challenges to it becoming like a global currency.”