On Thursday, on the finish of Coinbase’s third-quarter earnings name, CEO Brian Armstrong admitted he was “just a little bit distracted” as a result of he was “following the prediction market of what Coinbase will say on its subsequent earnings name.”
“And I want to add the phrases Bitcoin, Ethereum, Blockchain, Staking, Web3 right here simply to be sure you perceive earlier than the decision ends,” Armstrong added.
Why blurt them out with out clear context? As Mr. Armstrong hinted, these had been the phrases that Kalsi and Polimarket’s Point out Market customers had been betting could be spoken on the telephone. In different phrases, by talking, Mr. Armstrong allowed a few of that gamble to repay.
Bloomberg experiences that whereas the point out market stays a comparatively area of interest a part of the prediction market, a complete of $84,000 was wager on whether or not sure phrases could be mentioned on a crypto firm telephone name. And whereas Mr. Armstrong might have helped some Calsi and Polymarket customers make just a little cash, he additionally illustrated how simply these markets might be manipulated by executives as soon as they grow to be conscious of them.
In reality, Jeff Dorman, chief info officer at digital asset funding agency Arca, wrote in X: “When you assume it is cute, sensible, or shrewd that the CEO of the business’s largest firm brazenly manipulated the market, you want to take a tough take a look at your head.”
“After eight years of working tirelessly to teach institutional traders concerning the worth of crypto investing as an investable asset class and assist them really feel snug within the business, it’s not enjoyable for one in all our supposed ‘leaders’ to publicly ridicule the business with nonsense like this,” Dorman mentioned.
In the meantime, Polymarket posted that Armstrong’s feedback had been “the work of the satan.”
tech crunch occasion
san francisco
|
October 13-15, 2026
Coinbase has moved to help prediction markets itself by means of All the pieces Alternate, which Armstrong touted on the earnings name, and has additionally invested in Kalshi and Polymarket. A Coinbase spokesperson instructed Bloomberg that the corporate prohibits its staff from collaborating in prediction markets or associated actions throughout the firm.
After Armstrong’s remarks began gaining traction, Armstrong wrote to X, “Lol, this was enjoyable. It occurred spontaneously when somebody on the crew dropped a hyperlink within the chat.”
