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Most Influential 2021: Brian Armstrong
Coinbase’s CEO took the U.S.-based exchange public this year in a direct listing on Nasdaq.
By CoinDesk
Updated May 11, 2023, 5:16 p.m. Published Dec 10, 2021, 8:16 p.m.
Brian Armstrong, the 38-year-old founder of Coinbase, took the U.S.’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume public this year. In addition to his work making mass crypto adoption easy, Armstrong has been a vocal critic of onerous financial regulations, even proposing that the U.S. appoint a crypto-specific industry watchdog. Although a proposed savings feature called Lend was waylaid by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Coinbase continues to expand its revenue streams with a non-fungible token (NFTs) platform and credit card. Recently, Coinbase worked with decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Compound to bring users greater returns on their DAI holdings. Something of a crypto “incumbent,” Coinbase continues to innovate.
The Complete List: CoinDesk’s Most Influential 2021
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What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
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VanEck's new Avalanche ETF filing to include staking rewards for AVAX investors
The fund will use Coinbase Crypto Services as its initial staking provider and pay a 4% service fee, with rewards accruing to the fund and reflected in its net asset value.
What to know:
- VanEck has updated its filing for an Avalanche ETF, VAVX, to include staking rewards, aiming to generate income for investors by staking up to 70% of its AVAX holdings.
- The fund will use Coinbase Crypto Services as its initial staking provider and pay a 4% service fee, with rewards accruing to the fund and reflected in its net asset value.
- If approved, the fund will trade on Nasdaq under the ticker VAVX, tracking AVAX's price via a custom index, and will be custodied with regulated providers, including Anchorage Digital and Coinbase Custody.
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