I personally think Brian Armstrong and Coinbase have been a net negative for Bitcoin. And most likely will continue to be. Armstrong has worked as hard as he can to build a cantillon type structure in the crypto markets, basically actively working AGAINST one of the key innovations Bitcoin brings to the world.
It's the classic question. Is he evil? Or just dumb?
A lot of newcomers to Bitcoin don't know this, and a lot of the past gets memory holed and forgotten.
In the first year or two when Brian A. was getting Coinbase up and running, he was interviewed on a few occasions. I remember one interview very clearly where the interviewer asked him point blank if he had any interest in altcoins (this was even before the term "shitcoin" became a thing), and Brian flat out, without hesitation said "No, because I don't think that they have any value beyond what Bitcoin offers." He then went on to say that Coinbase would be exclusively focused on Bitcoin and nothing else.
So he was either lying then, or he his lying now. Perhaps the plan all along was an eventual bait-and-switch of the public. Or perhaps he has never been in control of his platform, and it was always the VCs calling the shots behind the scenes (my bet is on this). No matter what he might now say publicly, I don't believe that deep down inside he thinks that shitcoins have any real value at all.
Either way, I agree with you that offering and promoting shitcoins has definitely hurt the Bitcoin movement, and is completely antithetical to Bitcoin's long-term mission. It will continue to distract and lead the dumb, get-rich-quick mass public away from Bitcoin, and they will continue to get scammed and lose their wealth.
An analogy is that it's like a website that supposedly promotes health and fitness, but also selling heroin and donuts on their platform.
It's also why you can't place trust in any celebrity or personality that's a backer of Bitcoin; you can only place trust in the asset itself.
Yes. And there is an oft quoted 2015(?) tweet from him that says something along the lines of he does not think alts bring anything that can overcome Bitcoin's momentum.
One theory that gets batted around is during the blocksize wars his company was a signatory of the NY Agreement. And since the failure of the 2x blocks he has basically said he felt like Bitcoin had lost the script. And this was also about when the alts started showing up.
That and the fact that shilling all kinds of alts has made him a very rich man... well that's what drove it I think.
The question still remains though.
Does he just NOT SEE the difference between the centralized alts and the innovation that is Bitcoin. Was he just enamored all along with basically a grown up version of World of Warcraft gold? There are an alarming number of industry "insiders" who actually argue FOR centralization. I just saw some video with a coindesk writer making the argument that the VC/shitcoin connection was an anti-bitcoin sort of thing and Naomi Brockwell arguing that she would HOPE that the VCs get paid for their investments in centralized "web3" projects.
The list of people who either completely miss Bitcoin's killer app, or are pretend to so that can enrich themselves if fairly large... and I had thought by now it might have receded.
That was a foolish wide eyed fantasy.