Brian Armstrong , the billionaire founder of the largest American crypto trading exchange Coinbase (Nasdaq: COIN), has informed that NBA star Kevin Durant's account has been fixed.
Durant began to purchase Bitcoin in 2016 when he was playing for the Golden State Warriors. But he couldn't find the password to his Coinbase account that held his Bitcoin holdings.
"We've already been working directly with the Coinbase team on Kevin's account recovery, which is why it was easy for me to make a joke about it on stage," said Durant's agent Rich Kleiman.
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'Bitcoin' mentioned 25 times at dinner and Durant went shopping
The discussion around the NBA star's crypto investment came up during CNBC's Game Plan conference in Los Angeles on Sep 16 which both the player and his agent attended.
"I just heard the word 'bitcoin' 25 times this evening, and the next day, we started investing in bitcoin," Kleiman recalled a dinner years ago.
Kleiman revealed that he and Durant are also investors in Coinbase.
Nobody revealed how much Bitcoin Durant holds. When he first bought Bitcoin in 2016, it was trading with the price range of $360-$1,000. This year, it hit a new all-time high (ATH) of $124,457.12 around mid-August and is currently trading at $116,112.25 as per Kraken's price feed .
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Now, that is a whopping price appreciation of more than 100 times.
A purchase of $10,000 worth of Bitcoin in 2016 would be worth $1.8 million today.
Regarding Durant's Coinbase account, Armstrong shared on X on Sep. 18,
"We got this fixed. Account recovery complete!"
Armstrong faces community backlash
Armstrong faced a strong backlash from the crypto community over alleged preferential treatment to a celebrity account and the years-long delay in the resolution.
"If I was Durant, I wouldn't know whether to be pissed that my account was locked for so long, or happy, very happy," the popular crypto account, @alicharts, said .
"Helping bigger accounts who have a big following and will give you free PR is easy. Please help the thousand of smaller accounts who have no reach and no where to complain," another popular crypto account, @EmperorBTC, responded to Armstrong .
Another user decried the long delay , "Are you bragging about a 9 year lag time support ticket?"
This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Sep 19, 2025, where it first appeared in the Investing section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
