Coinbase, MicroStrategy execs among largest stock sellers last year

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Disrupting money and finance is big business. And business is good.

Look no further than SEC filings to find out just how much cash is made on the frontlines of the crypto revolution.

I spent the morning compiling 2024 insider stock sales for the top 60 or so companies in the S&P 500 (as well as a few other notables) and compared them to Coinbase and MicroStrategy.

From those firms — ranging from Apple and Nvidia to Costco and Walmart, to Palantir and Morgan Stanley — about 500 insiders, executives, investors and other major shareholders reported selling a combined $36.9 billion in company stock.

Amazon executive chair Jeff Bezos was responsible for more than one-third of that total ($13.4 billion). 

Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg followed with $2.5 billion, and Palantir co-founders Alexander Karp and Peter Thiel respectively cashed in $1.9 billion and $1.5 billion, either themselves directly or through trusts and funds in their names.

Still, four crypto execs found themselves in the top 25: Coinbase head honcho Brian Armstrong placed eighth with $636 million and MicroStrategy alpha bull Michael Saylor came 13th with $410.8 million.

*Totals may include sales by entities of which they are a beneficial owner

Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam took 22nd place with $203.8 million, a figure that counts COIN shares sold by his trust, as well as by his fund Paradigm.

Next after Ehrsam was Emilie Choi, Coinbase’s chief operating officer who joined the firm from LinkedIn in 2018, with $186.4 million. 

That’s $3.4 million more than JPMorgan boss Jamie Dimon, and $22.6 million more than Apple and Alphabet CEOs Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai combined.

All those sales helped put Coinbase at seventh overall for insider selling last year (for the analyzed companies, at least).

1. Amazon: $13.5 billion.
2. Walmart: $4.84 billion.
3. Palantir: $4.14 billion.
4. Meta: $2.72 billion.
5. Nvidia: $2 billion.
6. Salesforce: $1.27 billion.
7. Coinbase: $1.25 billion.
8. Oracle: $842 million.
9. Apollo: $630.6 million.
10. Intuit: $593.9 million.
11. MicroStrategy: $567.8 million.
12. Netflix: $528.3 million.

As for this year, I’d watch for MicroStrategy to flip Coinbase — should Saylor’s bitcoin plan really start to pay off.

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