Coinbase CEO Called Out for Being Hypocritical

Brian Armstrong, the chief executive of Coinbase, one of the most renowned crypto exchanges in the United States, had recently made waves in the market when he declared that the exchange needs to be apolitical and focus only on its mission and nothing else. The statements were made less than a month ago and had attracted a lot of controversy since then. However, it appears that the man has apparently forgotten his own agenda, when he tweeted for promoting a political post and of all things, doing it during regular business hours. On October 23rd, 2020, a tweet was posted from Armstrong’s personal Twitter account. 

In the mentioned tweet, the CEO had linked a blog post that had been penned down by Rob Rinehart. This blog post discussed Kanye West, along with his presidential run, and Armstrong said that it was an ‘epic post’. For reasons unknown, it appears that Rinehart doesn’t have a Twitter account anymore or it cannot be viewed. Even so, there is a possibility that the disappearance of the account could be linked to the inaccuracies and falsehoods that had been spotted in the blog post itself. As a matter of fact, considering the number of falsehoods it contained, some people assumed it was satire. 

However, the lines blurred a little too much to confirm it. In fact, the lies come off as quite impressive and extensive in their scope. The most prominent of the lies was that Beau Biden, son of the Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, had committed suicide. However, the truth was that Beau Biden had died back in 2015 after succumbing to brain cancer. Twitter is fully Democratic and it is evidenced by the fact that several accounts have been locked by the social platform. As a matter of fact, one of the most prominent accounts that were locked was that of the New York Post because some unverified claims had been made by the media outlet against Hunter Biden.

The blog post by Rinehart had been titled ‘Why I am Voting for Kanye West’. This is directly in contrast with the previous affirmations made by Armstrong about staying apolitical and ensuring the same at his firm. Armstrong had made these claims in September and claimed that the exchange would remain impartial and not advocate any cause or candidate that is not directly related to their mission. Therefore, there were many in the crypto community that considered his promotion of the political article to be hypocritical. 

To add insult to injury, the CEO did so on a business day, during working hours, based on the assumption that he follows regular working hours. Due to the exchange’s apolitical policy, employees had been given severance packages in case they were not in agreement with this stance. The exchange had forbidden its employees to indulge in political discussions as well. Consequently, a number of employees had opted to take up the offer of the severance packages and departed from Coinbase.