Coinbase thinks vibe-coding 50% of its platform is a good idea
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has faced a barrage of ridicule after posting on X that 40% of code written for his crypto exchange is “AI-generated,” and he wants this to rise to more than half by next month.
The somewhat arbitrary metric has drawn criticism and derision from across an industry all-too-familiar with the risks that hastily put together code can bring.
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Armstrong’s recognition that AI-generated code should be “reviewed and understood, and not all areas of the business can use [it]” seemed insufficient to calm suspicions that one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges was being held together by “vibe-coding.”
Many responses focused on the devastating leak of sensitive know-your-customer (KYC) data.
One X user asked if “KYC information and personal info” was “vibe coded too” before being leaked, while another posted a screenshot of what appears to be an SMS phishing message targeted at Coinbase customers, asking Armstrong “Is this why I get 10 of these a day now?”
The data breach, which occurred late last year, exposed almost 70,000 users and drew heavy criticism from across the crypto community. It led to millions of dollars worth of losses via fake customer service reps, including $4 million by a single scammer and part-time “Furry.”
Given the above, the tone-deaf nature of Armstrong’s latest announcement didn’t go unnoticed.
Read more: Coinbase leak prompts KYC criticism from crypto execs
Other responses focused on the security implications of such a large exchange and custodian being written mostly by AI. Pseudonymous crypto security expert samczsun simply said, “this explains a lot.”
Crypto commentator Adam Cochran suggested that the concept wasn’t what you “want to hear from a place that stores financial assets,” while the founder of decentralized exchange Dango called the initiative “a giant red flag for any security sensitive business.”
Another user put it more bluntly.
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Yet more skepticism came from those concerned by the inefficiencies that AI-generated code is likely to produce, with one poster saying they “would hate to try and debug that mess.”
An OffChain Labs engineer asked, “Why would your goal be to hit any metric like this?” calling it “bizarrely arbitrary and ridiculously easy to game.”
He argues that the volume of code “should be minimized if anything,” and “quality and maintainability is what matters.”
Another response queried whether Coinbase would be using the “cost savings from newfound efficiencies to lower your egregiously high fees on retail traders and re-shore your customer support.”
Perhaps such savings might have already been spent on Armstrong’s tequila-protection budget.
AI-generated or AI-augmented?
Below his post Armstrong linked to Coinbase’s Tools for Developer Productivity at Coinbase blog post, published last month.
The post describes how AI tools like Cursor, Copilot, and Claude Code are being “incorporated to help our developers improve the coding journey while maintaining the highest bar for customer safety and quality.”
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Coinbase appears keen to make clear that it recognizes that large language models “don’t produce flawless code, and we have seen that a growing use of AI in development increases bugs.”
The post continues, “AI is still just a tool for us, and tools don’t ship bugs, humans do.”
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