Coinbase restores NBA star's account, but restriction accusations persist

NBA champion Kevin Durant has regained access to his Bitcoin account at Coinbase after nearly a decade of being locked out, the crypto exchange CEO Brian Armstrong confirmed Friday.

The two-time NBA champion with the Golden State Warriors franchise invested in Bitcoin in 2016, lost his password, and couldn’t access his holdings for over a decade. 

It took an interview with CNBC and an X post from the Bitcoin Archive, counting what the coins are worth right now, for the crypto exchange to give him back access. 

“We got this fixed. Account recovery complete!” Armstrong wrote on X, quoting Bitcoin Archive’s post on Durant’s potential returns. Netizens were far from happy with the CEO’s “update.”

Durant bought Bitcoin after hearing about it 25 times in one evening

The basketball player had dinner with venture capitalist Ben Horowitz shortly after signing with the Warriors during the NBA offseason in mid-2016. Rich Kleiman, Durant’s longtime agent and business partner, said they heard the word “Bitcoin” 25 times at the event and decided to go deep into their pockets to buy the digital asset the following day. 

Together, the pair began buying into the crypto but ran into trouble when they lost access to Durant’s Coinbase account, when Durant “couldn’t find his password.”

“We’ve yet to be able to track down his Coinbase account info, so we’ve never sold anything, and his bitcoin is just through the roof,” Kleiman told an audience earlier this week at CNBC and Boardroom’s Game Plan event in Los Angeles.

At the time, BTC was just trading at $650, and at current prices of around $117,000, it has grown 180x. If the NBA Finals MVP and his agent had invested just $10,000, the holdings would be worth a whopping $1.8 million. 

Durant and Kleiman held on to a ticket for nearly ten years, trying to recover the account. Kleiman said the situation was very frustrating, but admitted it has benefited both of them financially.

Coinbase faces wave of public criticism

Coinbase has been defending its customer support policies, noting that users can reset lost passwords through self-service tools in the app. “Our support team is available 24/7 to guide users through this process,” a spokesperson said.

But on Friday morning, when Armstrong told netizens Durant had regained access to his Bitcoin holdings, they were far from happy that the exchange took 9 years to solve the password issue.

“Helping bigger accounts who have a big following and will give you free PR is easy,” one user wrote. “Please help the thousand of smaller accounts who have no reach and nowhere to complain. Being the people’s champion when sucking up to celebrities is easy.”

Another user piled on the public outrage, saying: “This is not a flex, lil bro. It took 8 years for a mega star to get this resolved. Imagine all the average people that have been crying to you for the same issue.”

The case gets worse for the crypto exchange as Durant and Kleiman are also investors in Coinbase Global. Through their firm Thirty Five Ventures, they struck a multiyear deal with the exchange in 2021 to promote its services. 

“Coinbase has been a valuable resource in growing our business,” Kleiman remarked.

This does not look good for Coinbase, which is also now being accused of solving problems exclusively for people with a higher social status, or those with whom they can do business with.

“I really hope you take the feedback this tweet has generated and take a long, hard look at your CS org. This is not the Coinbase you once started, and it needs fixing. Something’s wrong,” another disgruntled X user commented.

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