Founder Profile
Fred Ehrsam
Last reviewed: October 2026 · By Swet Parvadiya
Who is Fred Ehrsam?
Fred Ehrsam is a founder of Coinbase Global, which was founded in 2012 with Brian Armstrong.
- Company founded
- Coinbase Global
- Founded
- 2012
- Co-founders
- Brian Armstrong
Background
Fred Ehrsam studied computer science and economics at Duke University and worked as a foreign exchange trader at Goldman Sachs, where he became interested in Bitcoin. He connected with Brian Armstrong through an online Bitcoin community in 2012, and the two co-founded Coinbase within months.
Founding Story
Fred Ehrsam co-founded Coinbase with Brian Armstrong in 2012 and helped shape its early trading, banking and fundraising work. He stepped back from operations in January 2017 but has remained a member of Coinbase's board. In 2018 he co-founded Paradigm with Matt Huang, a crypto investment firm that has backed projects such as Uniswap and also invested in FTX before its 2022 collapse.
Fred Ehrsam was born in 1988.