The following is an internal memo that I shared with Coinbase employees this week and would also like to share publicly to help people see how we’re working toward our mission of increasing economic freedom in the world.

Tl;dr: Our core thesis is that greater adoption and usage of cryptocurrency will increase economic freedom in the world, because crypto solves many of the shortcomings of the current financial system that hinder economic freedom.

Team,

Every quarter at our company All Hands, we review our Mission (what we’re trying to achieve) and our Strategy (how we’re going to get there). One question I often hear from employees is: “How does cryptocurrency create more economic freedom in the world?” This is a great question, so I wanted to share my thoughts with all of you.

First, a refresher: Economic freedom is a composite measure of 12 factors. It quantifies the rights of people to control their own labor and property in each country and globally. Economic freedom varies dramatically across the world, and while our economy is increasingly global, the government of any single country has significant control over the financial and economic freedoms of its people. Low economic freedom in a given country isn’t always due to malicious activity (e.g, fraud, oppression, etc) — it’s often due to mismanagement (poor monetary and fiscal policy) or simply bad infrastructure.

Crypto and economic freedom

The question to ask is: How can we build a global economy where anyone with an internet connection can participate, where property rights are enforced, and where money preserves its value? Crypto is the solution. Crypto can’t directly improve every facet of economic freedom (e.g., tax policies and government spending), but it can improve most of the underlying drivers (see below).