Coinbase CEO calls for a review of accredited investor laws in the United States, suggesting that competency assessments replace wealth thresholds.

CoinFeed reported on June 16th that Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong published an article on the X platform stating that the US should re-examine accredited investor laws. He argued that increasingly longer privatization periods mean only accredited investors (i.e., wealthy individuals) can participate in early-stage investments, while ordinary retail investors can only enter after the IPO, by which time most of the potential upside has already been priced in. While these rules were originally intended to protect ordinary investors from fraud, they often make it harder for those who are not wealthy to become rich. Armstrong proposed two possible reform paths: one is to replace existing rules with competency-based standards, such as requiring a financial literacy test to qualify as an accredited investor; the other is to completely abolish the rule, allowing adults to assess risk themselves, while retaining disclosure requirements and fraud enforcement measures.