The venture capitalist said Adam Draper wrote Brian Armstrong his first check, and Coinbase later delivered returns that nearly doubled Draper Associates Fund V.
Tim Draper said his initial decision not to invest in Coinbase came from misjudging how quickly retail crypto adoption would arrive, not from doubts about Brian Armstrong. In an X post on July 14, Draper said he had already backed Coinlab, an early Bitcoin infrastructure company, when Armstrong pitched Coinbase as an easier way for consumers to access digital assets. Draper said Adam Draper took the opposite view on timing and wrote Armstrong his first check, before Tim Draper joined a later round. Coinbase, founded by Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam, later grew into a publicly traded crypto platform on Nasdaq under the ticker COIN. Draper said the investment became one of the defining winners in Draper Associates Fund V, with Coinbase alone generating returns that nearly doubled the fund. Armstrong replied by praising Tim and Adam Draper for making early bets before markets were fully formed, while Draper framed the episode as a lesson for founders to keep pitching after an initial rejection.