Roelof Botha, Managing Partner at Sequoia Capital, is among those affected by a data breach at Coinbase, a development that has raised alarms across Silicon Valley’s venture capital community.
A Bloomberg report on May 16 confirmed Botha as one of the victims whose personal information was compromised during a targeted social engineering attack that exploited Coinbase’s customer support infrastructure.
According to Coinbase’s May 15 blog post, the breach involved a bribery scheme in which attackers coerced Indian-based support agents to provide unauthorized access to user data. The perpetrators demanded a $20 million ransom, which Coinbase declined to pay.
Roelof Botha: A High-Profile Target
Botha, who manages assets worth hundreds of millions at Sequoia, is the most prominent individual to be named among the affected users.
Coinbase stated that it has since terminated the compromised support staff and reported the breach to the U.S. SEC. The company estimates that the financial impact could range from $180 million to $400 million, including remediation costs and security upgrades.
Meanwhile, other crypto exchanges like Kraken and Binance have launched investigations into potential data exposure following reports of similar intrusion attempts.
Coinbase shares (COIN) took a hit in the aftermath, dropping 7% to $244 before recovering slightly to $264.24.
Coinbase Earnings and Ongoing Regulatory Push
The data breach comes at a challenging time for Coinbase, which reported a 24% increase in revenue to $2 billion for Q1 2025 but saw net income plunge by 94% to $66 million.
While the company’s subscription and services division grew by 37% to $700 million, the revenue gains were overshadowed by a 51% increase in operating expenses, driven by aggressive marketing and asset write-downs amid ongoing market volatility.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong was in Washington, D.C., on the same day the breach was disclosed, engaging with lawmakers over two critical pieces of crypto legislation — one targeting stablecoins and another focused on digital asset market structure.
With the regulatory environment tightening and Coinbase under increased scrutiny, the breach could have broader implications for the exchange’s efforts to position itself as a trusted financial institution in the crypto sector.
