On Thursday, at the end of Coinbase Q3 Earnings CallCEO Brian Armstrong admitted he was “a little distracted” because he had been “following the market’s predictions about what Coinbase will say in its next earnings call.”
“And I just want to add the words Bitcoin, Ethereum, Blockchain, Stake, and Web3 here to make sure we get them in before the call ends,” Armstrong added.
Why let them slip away without any apparent context? As Armstrong implied, they were words that “mention markets” users on Kalshi and Polymarket had bet would be uttered on the call. So by saying those words, Armstrong was allowing some of those gambles to pay off.
Bloomberg Reports that while mention markets remain a relatively niche part of prediction markets, a total of $84,000 had been bet on whether certain words would be spoken on the cryptocurrency company’s call. And while Armstrong may have helped some Kalshi and Polymarket users make a little money, he was also illustrating how easily these markets can be manipulated when executives become aware of them.
In fact, Jeff Dorman, CIO of digital asset investment firm Arca, wrote in X that “you need to have your head examined if you think it’s cute, smart, or intelligent that the CEO of the largest company in this industry has blatantly manipulated a market.”
“It’s no fun working tirelessly for 8 years trying to educate institutional investors about the value of investing in cryptocurrency as an investable asset class, and working to help them feel comfortable in this industry, while one of the so-called ‘leaders’ openly mocks the industry with garbage like this,” Dorman said.
Polimercado, for its part, aware that Armstrong’s comments were “a devil’s work.”
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Coinbase is moving to support prediction markets through Everything Exchange, which Armstrong touted on the earnings call, and the company has also invested in Kalshi and Polymarket. A Coinbase spokesperson told Bloomberg that the company prohibits employees from participating in prediction markets or company-related activities.
After Armstrong’s comments began to attract attention, wrote in X“haha this was fun, it happened spontaneously when someone on our team put a link in the chat.”
