Coinbase CEO Sells Only, Doesn't Buy? Sold All His Shares 88 Times Without Any Record of Buying

BlockBeats News, January 8th, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong had previously stated, "It feels good to buy Coinbase stock through the Coinbase platform (at least that's what everyone tells me) — unfortunately, as a Section 16 officer, I can only trade via a 10b5-1 plan, but I imagine that feeling must be great." Some users viewed this statement as positive promotion of Coinbase's own products and stock.

However, the community later checked publicly disclosed insider trading data and found that Brian Armstrong had never purchased any COIN stock through his 10b5-1 plan. The data shows that as of now:

Number of Buys: 0
Number of Sells: 88

All were sell transactions, with no records of any buys. In terms of timing, Brian Armstrong's sell-offs span multiple quarters from 2024 to 2025, including:

In 2024 Q4, a single quarter's sell-off amounted to approximately $437 million;
In 2025 Q2 and Q3, sell-offs of around $196 million and $268 million, respectively;
There are systematic sell-off records in almost every quarter.

Although trading through a 10b5-1 plan is not a violation of compliance at the regulatory level and is often used by executives for pre-planned asset liquidity, the trading structure of "long-term zero buys and continuous high-frequency sells" has still sparked discussions in the crypto community about management confidence and incentive alignment. At the time of writing, the Coinbase platform's stock price has fallen by 45% in the past six months.