Coinbase CEO says he would never donate to charity — ‘I’m not going to do that’

He also noted that many philanthropic efforts are actually done out of selfishness, rather than generosity, pointing to Bill Gates.

“Like, Bill Gates after the DOJ thing is like, ‘I’m going to go rehabilitate my image, I’m going to do philanthropy,’” he said.

No to donations

Armstrong’s net worth is estimated at $9.3 billion, making him the 413th richest man in the world, according to Bloomberg. Despite that, he said, he has no plans to undertake any philanthropic efforts.

“When you have a company go public, you get all these financial advisors around you and they’re often, for various tax reasons, are like ‘ok, we should set up this foundation for you’,” he said. “And so far, I’ve just been like ‘no I’m not going to do that’ because my fear is it just gets captured by some ideology that I lose control of it. If you look at the Ford Foundation, I think Henry Ford would be turning over in his grave if he knew what they were up to.”

Armstrong did say he has a donor advised fund, where he puts money towards things that he believes are helping civilization advance, but says he doesn’t see himself creating a foundation – though he did warn he would never say never.

But yes to video games

That’s not to say Armstrong and Coinbase haven’t given away money. Armstrong said he and his wife are fans of the mobile game The Battle for Polytopia. And he noticed tournaments for the game had small purses of €25, likely because the game’s player base is fairly small.

So he decided to have Coinbase sponsor the Polytopia Championship, which happens once a year. He didn’t mention how much the company would be donating. The prize pool for the tournament, however, currently appears to be $10,000.