Fred Ehrsam is a Co-founder and a board member at Coinbase, and the Co-founder and Managing Partner of Paradigm. ^[1][2]

Education

Fred Ehrsam completed his undergraduate studies at Duke University, graduating with a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in Computer Science and Economics. He received honors and departmental distinction in both fields of study. ^[3]

Career

Fred Ehrsam's career began with his work at Duke University, where he engaged in research focused on self-assembling DNA nanostructures from May 2008 to July 2008. ^[4]

Following this, he joined Goldman Sachs as a Trader in New York, NY, where he worked in foreign exchange from July 2010 to June 2012. ^[4]

Coinbase

In November 2012, Fred co-founded Coinbase, a centralized exchange (CEX), alongside Brian Armstrong in San Francisco, CA, with a mission to make crypto easy to use. Fred and Brian first got into contact when Fred came across Brian's early prototype of Coinbase on the Bitcoin subreddit and connected through email, leading to them meeting up in person in San Francisco, in 2012. Since the establishment of Coinbase, Fred continued to serve as a Co-Founder until January 2017, where he has been contributing his expertise to the company's strategic direction as a member of the Board of Directors. ^[4][5]

Paradigm

In June 2018, he co-founded Paradigm, a crypto investment firm, focusing on pushing the frontier of the cryptocurrency industry. In May 2022, Fred Ehrsam bought $75 million worth of Coinbase stocks (COIN) when the company's stock price dropped due to weak earnings. These purchases were made through Paradigm on two different occassions: on May 13, acquiring over 706,000 shares at an average price of $70 each, totaling nearly $50 million; then, on May 17, Ehrsam bought an additional 385,000 shares at an average price of around $65 each, totaling about $25 million. These acquisitions increased Paradigm's holdings in Coinbase to over 3.6 million shares, and it is said that Ehrsam personally holds around 1.1 million shares through a trust. ^[7]

Following this investment made in May 2022, nearly exactly a year later in May 2023, Fred Ehrsam purchased an additional $50 million worth of COIN shares, bought across 9th and 10th of May, amounting to 810,000 shares. ^[10][11]

Fred Steps Down as Managing Partner

On October 24, 2023, Fred Ehrsam announced on X his stepping down as managing partner at Paradigm. He announced he would be going forward as a general partner and also devote more time to “explore areas of science" that he's passionate about. ^[16]

"My role at Paradigm will be shifting from Managing Partner to General Partner. I’ll continue to work with our investing & research teams, work with portfolio companies, and fight for good crypto policy, while focusing less on the day to day management of the firm. I look forward to working closely with @matthuang and the rest of the Paradigm team to keep pushing the frontier of crypto forward." - Fred wrote on X^[17]

"This change allows me to carve out some time to explore areas of science that are of personal passion for me," he wrote."

As for the areas of science he wants to explore, he explained:

"There's been a long pre-history of crypto interest in the frontiers of bio, from Hal Finney and cryogenics to Vitalik Buterin and Brian Armstrong's more recent support of longevity research. I have personally been investing in and supporting bio research for several years and am excited to ramp up these efforts."^[18]

Views on the Crypto/NFT space

In a Bloomberg interview, Fred Ehrsam voiced his opinion about NFTs, stating that he can see similarities between NFT projects and the dotcom boom - both birthed by hype which will eventually die down. He believes that around 80-90% of NFT projects will become worthless within the next 5 years, a ratio similar to the amount of "useless" websites that came about in the 1990s. ^[12][13]

"I go so far as to say that 90% of NFTs produced, they probably will have little to no value in three to five years. You could say the same thing about early internet companies in the late '90s too, though."

“People will try anything. There will be millions of cryptocurrencies and digital assets just like there are millions and millions of websites. Most of them won’t work"

In terms of cryptocurrencies' impact on the future, he stated that he believes crypto has the power to bring in the same, or even more job opportunities than the internet did. He also highlighted crypto's security benefits, stating that crypto and blockchain technology could be the key to solving all the internet security issues that have arisen in the past. ^[14]

"I do think that crypto is a nuanced issue and that it is possible that the US gets crypto wrong. At the same time I think crypto is the next internet sized opportunity for the US. I think it has the potential to create as many, if not more jobs that the internet, similar with economic growth. I think it has the potential to square the circle on the privacy internet issues that we have been talking about with big tech companies for the last 10 years. Namely, we can use these tech to continue to own our own data while still getting all the benefits of the internet platforms that we know and love today."

Gaming

Growing up, Fred Ehrsam dedicated a lot of his time to gaming. He spent around 3 to 4 thousand hours on two first-person shooter games: the first Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, and America's Army, being part of one of the best teams in the world at the time. He also spent another 3 to 4 thousand hours in a MMORPG game called, World of Warcraft. ^[6]

Awards/Recognition

In 2013, Fred Ehrsam featured in Time's 30 under 30, shortly after becoming the co-founder of Coinbase. ^[8]

In 2020, Fred made it on The Cointelegraph Top 100, ranking 61st on the list. This was shortly after the launch of Paradigm, and he was recognized for the company's successful investments in prominent crypto projects. ^[9]