Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong previously changed his X profile picture to a 'Coinbase Man' style avatar, drawing massive attention to BRIAN, a Base meme coin. However, Armstrong swapped the avatar again a few hours later, triggering a sharp plunge in BRIAN’s price. Rune, a crypto KOL who previously promoted BRIAN heavily, apologized to his followers and criticized Base management for neglecting traders of the token.

Rune then raised questions to Cobie, head of trading products at Coinbase, about how Base App would attract users to conduct on-chain transactions amid eroded user trust in Base. Cobie responded that he only took charge of Base App and Coinbase trading products a few days prior and does not oversee the Base blockchain itself. He admitted Coinbase has long been disconnected from native crypto users, and multiple avoidable missteps by Coinbase and Base have severely depleted user trust, with the latest incident being another example. He pledged to listen more to on-chain community feedback and build products that users are willing to adopt.