Coinbase defends ETH holdings amid community criticism: Jesse Pollak

Jesse Pollak, the Coinbase executive behind the Base layer-2 network, fired back at Ethereum community members who’ve been accusing the exchange of dumping its ETH. His core argument: Coinbase holds more ETH than any non-DAT entity, and it’s not even close. Pollak posted on X that Coinbase is “the largest non-DAT holder of ETH by an order of magnitude,” a claim that puts some distance between the company and the narrative that it’s quietly rotating out of Ethereum in favor of Bitcoin. The company’s ETH treasury holdings sit somewhere between 115,000 and 151,000 ETH, worth roughly $300M. What sparked the backlash The criticism has been building for months. Ethereum community members have grown increasingly vocal about what they see as a contradiction: Coinbase runs Base, one of the most active Ethereum layer-2 networks, while allegedly selling ETH generated from sequencer revenue and other operations. Some critics point to Coinbase’s apparent preference for accumulating BTC on its corporate balance sheet while treating ETH more as an operational asset than a conviction hold. Pollak’s response tried to reframe the conversation entirely. Rather than getting into the weeds of specific ...