88 sales, 0 buys: Coinbase’s Armstrong defends COIN transaction history

Coinbase cofounder and CEO Brian Armstrong has laughed off claims that he is not bullish on the company after it was revealed that he has been selling the company’s stock via his 10b5-1 plan without making any purchases.

The controversy emerged after Armstrong responded to a post by Nick Prince, product lead at Base. The post was celebrating one of Coinbase’s latest features, which allows users to invest in stocks straight from the platform.

Armstrong remarked, “Buying Coinbase through Coinbase feels good.” Although he notes that regulatory restrictions prevent him from doing so directly using Coinbase as a Section 16 officer, he claims to use a 10b5-1 trading plan.

CEO Watcher, a platform that tracks insider trading activity, quickly applied the context that Armstrong has executed 88 sales of Coinbase stock through his plan, but zero purchases.

Armstrong acknowledged the observation on X, writing, “Hah – you’re not wrong. It would be a little crazy after 13 years to have 99.999% of your net worth in one stock, no? So there is only one direction to go.”

The Coinbase co-founder insisted he still maintains the vast majority of his net worth in Coinbase’s stock and remains “super long” on the business, adding that he has used proceeds from sales to “help start more companies as well.”

Does Brian Armstrong buy Coinbase stock?

Armstrong’s recent trading activity illustrates the steady divestment pattern. On January 5, he sold $9.9 million worth of Coinbase stock, which was disclosed in an SEC filing. On December 22, 2025, he sold 40,000 company shares worth around $10.2 million.

Trade trackers have shown that Armstrong sold up to $9.9 million in Class A common stock on January 5.

There has been a series of sales, with significant amounts sold in the third quarter of 2025. Armstrong adopted his current 10b5-1 plan on 15 August 2024.

Market perception and concentration risk

While investors usually discount sales made via preset plans, the magnitude of Armstrong’s transactions continues to attract scrutiny from tracking platforms and market observers.

The irony of the situation, Armstrong promoting the ability to buy Coinbase stock on Coinbase while being unable to purchase his own company’s shares on the platform or even buying via the route available to him, has not been lost on commentators.

Financial analysts say that after spending more than a decade building Coinbase, concentrating virtually all personal wealth in a single equity holding would be an idiosyncratic risk, regardless of confidence in the company’s prospects.

And it seems Armstrong understands that, as he pointed out that some of the proceeds from those sales have gone into other companies.

Coinbase pursues ambitious everything exchange vision

The exchange over Armstrong’s trading history comes as Coinbase pursues an ambitious expansion beyond cryptocurrency. In his 2026 roadmap, Armstrong outlined plans to transform Coinbase into an “everything exchange” offering access to crypto, equities, prediction markets, and commodities, a vision that includes the recently launched traditional stock trading feature that sparked the initial discussion.

The company has also developed partnerships for prediction markets and continues building out its Base Layer-2 network alongside its stablecoins and payments infrastructure.

Coinbase is not the only exchange expanding beyond crypto trading. Bitget is pushing into 2026 as a universal exchange (UEX), while Binance continues to expand its offering, launching perpetual contracts on gold and silver earlier today, as reported by Cryptopolitan.

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