Share this article

Fed's Powell May Have Met With Coinbase CEO in May

Brian Armstrong is listed on the central bank's calendar, public records show.

Updated Sep 14, 2021, 1:20 p.m. Published Jul 2, 2021, 6:53 p.m.

U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell was scheduled to meet with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong on May 11, according to an entry on the central bank's calendar.

STORY CONTINUES BELOW

Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Long & Short Newsletter today. See all newsletters

By signing up, you will receive emails about CoinDesk products and you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy.

It was unknown what the subject of the planned half hour meeting was or that it even took place.
Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan was also to have been in attendance.
Per the calendar, Powell was scheduled to meet in person the following day and virtually the day after that with Christopher Giancarlo, the former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, about the Digital Dollar Project that Giancarlo heads.
Armstrong tweeted a lengthy thread on May 14 about his adventures in D.C.
"Goal was to establish relationships and help answer questions about crypto," he tweeted at the time.
Although there's no mention of meeting with Powell, Armstrong's thread did include a photo with Ryan.
When reached by CoinDesk, a Coinbase spokesperson said the company had nothing to add beyond Armstrong's tweets at the time.

20/ former Speaker Paul Ryan @speakerryan pic.twitter.com/lfadbT2nvS

— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) May 15, 2021

Update (July 2, 20:55 UTC): Adds comment from a Coinbase spokesperson.

Coinbase Brian Armstrong Jerome Powell Digital Dollar Chris Giancarlo

Kevin Reynolds

Kevin Reynolds is editor-in-chief at CoinDesk. Prior to joining the company in mid-2020, Reynolds spent 23 years at Bloomberg, where he won two CEO awards for moving the needle for the entire company and established himself as one of the world's leading experts in real-time financial news. In addition to having done almost every job in the newsroom, Reynolds built, scaled and ran products for every asset class, including First Word, a 250-person global news/analysis service for professional clients, as well as Bloomberg's Speed Desk and the training program that all Bloomberg News hires worldwide are required to take. He also turned around several other operations, including the company's flash headlines desk and was instrumental in the turnaround of Bloomberg's BGOV unit. He shares a patent for a content management system he helped design, is a Certified Scrum Master, and a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. He owns bitcoin, ether, polygon and solana.