🚨COINBASE CO-FOUNDER BRIAN ARMSTRONG RECOLLECTS COINBASE’S BEGINNINGS WITH CHARLIE LEE In a recent tweet, Brian Armstrong reflected on an engineering challenge he and Charlie Lee faced in the early days of Coinbase. Brian had reached out to cryptography experts, including Zooko from Zcash, who estimated it would take approximately 18 months and a team of 10 to build Coinbase’s cold storage system. But they didn’t have 18 months. Or 10 people. Coinbase was cash-strapped and there wasn’t a lot of money to throw around. So, it was just the two of them—Brian Armstrong and Charlie Lee—working around the clock. After nonstop grinding and a lot of sleep deprivation, they got it done in just EIGHT WEEKS, against all odds. Brian called it one of his proudest technical accomplishments. Had they not pulled it off, Coinbase might not exist today. Most know Charlie Lee as the creator of Litecoin. But very few are aware of the depth of his contributions to the space. Charlie is an MIT alum with a master’s in computer science and electrical engineering. He worked at Google on products like YouTube Mobile, Chrome OS, and Google Play before eventually becoming Director of Engineering at Coinbase. He’s one of the earliest Bitcoin pioneers, having attended some of the first Bitcoin meetups. Long before NFTs existed, he created “follow-the-satoshi”, a concept that inspired Bitcoin ordinals years later. In 2014, when Dogecoin faced a major security threat due to low hashrate, Charlie urged the community to implement merged mining with Litecoin. That move helped secure Dogecoin’s survival—and today, Doge is one of the most popular cryptocurrencies in existence. Charlie is currently the Managing Director of the Litecoin Foundation and remains actively involved in day-to-day operations and funding ongoing development. Over a decade later, he’s still building. He’s always championed transparency and fairness, launching Litecoin with no pre-mine, no insider allocation, and announcing the launch in advance so anyone could mine it from day one. Here’s to Charlie Lee—one of the rare builders in crypto who lets the work speak for itself. A true pioneer and legend of the crypto space. 🥂 @SatoshiLite @brian_armstrong @coinbase