Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said on the Katie Miller Podcast that a California wealth tax measure on the ballot amounts to an "unconstitutional asset seizure," and said the company was open to "any and all options in terms of relocation," according to Protos.
Protos said Armstrong also made other forceful claims during the appearance, including the view that artificial intelligence does not need regulation.
Another California exit warning
Protos wrote that this is not the first time Armstrong and Coinbase have floated the idea of leaving California. In 2021, Armstrong said Coinbase was "closing its San Francisco offices for good." The report then pointed to a later move by the company: in 2025, Coinbase signed a four-year lease for 150,000 square feet of office space in San Francisco.
During the podcast, Armstrong repeatedly argued that the California wealth tax proposal is unconstitutional. Protos said he described it as the government "coming in and seizing private property" and said the ballot measure felt "very third world."
Podcast setting and Protos’ framing
The show is hosted by Katie Miller. Protos identified her as the wife of Stephen Miller, the current White House deputy chief of staff. The article also described her as a Republican loyalist who briefly worked for Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and now works as a podcaster.
Protos argued that Armstrong’s decision to go on the program follows what it described as a longstanding pattern: limiting employees’ political voices while using company funds and his own money to support Donald Trump and other Republican politicians.
The report said the episode had been viewed about 2,000 times at the time Protos published its article. In Protos’ reading, Armstrong’s appearance was less about reaching a broad new audience and more about trying to curry favor with the Trump administration.
Support for Trump-linked positions and projects cited in the report
Protos said Armstrong has been trying in multiple ways to get closer to the Trump administration. The article listed what it described as donations tied to the destruction of the White House East Wing, support for a military parade in June, the listing of Trump’s memecoin on Coinbase, and support for crypto legislation backed by the president and his allies.
According to Protos, Katie Miller repeatedly tried to steer Armstrong toward flattering Trump. The article said she suggested Trump understands crypto far better than Joe Biden and asked Armstrong what his favorite memecoin was, in what Protos described as an obvious attempt to get him to name Trump’s token.
Other remarks and disputed claims
Protos also said Katie Miller criticized Representative Ro Khanna’s idea of taking a portion of a unicorn company’s stock instead of taxing founders on unrealized gains. The article added that the Trump administration has taken large stakes in Intel, Westinghouse, and dozens of other companies.
The report challenged several statements Armstrong made during the interview. One example cited by Protos was his claim that, "if you go back 100 years, people in the US average life expectancy was 35 or something and now we’ve more than doubled it." Protos said that was false, writing that the average cohort lifespan for an individual in 1924 was 57 and that it has not doubled in the century since.
Protos also said Armstrong claimed, without offering evidence, that there are "millions of crypto voters" and no anti-crypto voters. The article characterized that as hyperbolic.
Why Protos says the appearance matters
Protos said Armstrong’s willingness to spend time with Katie Miller likely had more to do with trying to get the CLARITY Act passed this year. The publication wrote that the public is likely to see a marketing push from Armstrong over the next month aimed at influencing voters and politicians to move that legislation forward.
The article was published by Protos under the headline, "Coinbase and Brian Armstrong are threatening to leave California… again."