I was fired from my software engineering job at Coinbase for building an AI trading platform. Here’s what happened.

Austin Starks — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 16:52:09 +0000

When I woke up to the email, I knew I should've prepared for the worst.

I didn't expect this.

"The investigation has concluded and it has found that you violated the Company's Outside Activities Policy. Due to this violation, Coinbase is terminating your employment, effective immediately."

So... matter of factly. Without empathy.

Cruel.

I wasn't the only one that was surprised. My entire team, including my manager, found out the day of. I was suspended, left in the dark, then promptly fired... even though I followed the rules.

Here's what happened.

Jumping for Joy at My Initial Offer

When I got my initial offer from Coinbase, I couldn't stop talking about it. As someone who has been intrinsically passionate about investing for years, this was finally my chance to apply my passion with a big-boy job.

Who wouldn't be excited?

I got my offer contract and read it over and over again. But not just me. I also used ChatGPT and Claude to make sure I wasn't missing anything. There was one section that seemed particularly important.

Ownership of Inventions.

The clause that was supposed to protect me.

It seemed simple enough. Send an email to peopleops and they'll take care of the rest. I signed my offer letter, sent the email, and started my new adventure at Coinbase.

The email I sent to peopleops on September 2, 2025, before my start date. NexusTrade was disclosed.

Until I was contacted by a department that I had never worked with before... Compliance.

The Conflict of Interest

Now, I want to be very clear about where I'm coming from. I was NOT hiding an outside business from Coinbase. If you know anything about me, you know I'm telling the truth.

I talk about my app NexusTrade all of the time. It's on my GitHub profile. It's on my LinkedIn. It's quite literally the only thing I post about on Medium.

It's NOT a secret. It's why I was hired.

My interviewers asked me about it. My resume featured it prominently. Coinbase knew exactly what I was building when they extended the offer. I disclosed it in writing before my first day, exactly as the offer letter instructed.

But unbeknownst to me, Coinbase had become interested in the intersection of AI and trading. In December 2025, they officially launched Coinbase Advisor. I wasn't paying attention when they made the announcement; I was far too busy refactoring our question bank to let our team configure questions through Cursor or Claude Code instead of the old, error-prone manual process. So when I received a DM from Coinbase's Legal Team, I knew something started to feel off.

I kept my cool and cooperated.

I'm not going to bore you with the details. The Coinbase Legal team had me go through the process. I tried to explain the situation. That my app is an algorithmic trading platform, that I'm a "one-man shop", and that there is virtually no overlap with my role working on institutional onboarding.

They didn't care.

I even became desperate. Started offering concessions like open-sourcing the project or removing digital assets.

They accepted none.

"It materially competes with Coinbase Advisor. It doesn't matter that you declared it. It doesn't matter that you've been working on it for five years. Shut it down, sell it, or resign, your choice."

Yeah. What a choice.

The Suspension

They gave me 30 days to shut down the app, sell it, or resign.

I had poured five years of my life into NexusTrade. Shutting it down wasn't an option. Selling it overnight wasn't realistic. So I tried to handle the situation like a professional. If they were effectively forcing me out over a pre-disclosed side project, I asked if we could negotiate a standard severance package so we could part ways amicably.

Their response?

Instead of negotiating, they immediately suspended me. On Wednesday, March 25th, I was placed on leave for sudden "conduct concerns."

The accusation was baseless. I knew it, because I had actually read the Code of Conduct. During the investigation, they asked me questions like whether I had worked on NexusTrade during work hours (no) and whether I had used Coinbase equipment for it (never). I answered everything honestly. Yes, I had continued working on NexusTrade since being employed at Coinbase, but always on my own time, on my own machine.

It felt incredibly retaliatory: a punishment simply for asking for severance after they backed me into a corner. I raised retaliation concerns to HR on Monday, March 30th. I also raised the possibility of racial discrimination. I don't believe a white engineer with a similar side project would have been treated this way: locked out, shut down, not allowed to say goodbye. Coinbase has said that denials of outside activities are "rare." I wonder who's getting denied.

Coinbase fired me one week later.

They dropped the "conduct concerns" framing, switched back to "Outside Activities Violation," and terminated me effective immediately. They didn't even honor their own 30-day deadline. No severance. No transition. My manager didn't even know until the day of.

Here's the timeline:

Before Day 1: Disclosed NexusTrade in writing to peopleops, exactly as the offer letter instructed.
December 2025: Coinbase launches Coinbase Advisor. Coinbase Legal contacts me about NexusTrade. I submit through their review process.
Early 2026: Coinbase determines NexusTrade "materially competes" with Coinbase Advisor. Tells me to shut it down, sell it, or resign within 30 days.
March 24, 2026: I ask for a standard severance package since they're effectively forcing me out.
March 25, 2026: Immediately suspended for "conduct concerns." One day after asking for severance.
March 30, 2026: I raise retaliation and discrimination concerns to HR.
April 6, 2026: Fired. "Conduct concerns" dropped. Termination reason: "Outside Activities Violation." No severance. Nobody on my team was told in advance.

The App That They're So Afraid Of

So what is this app that Coinbase felt so threatened by? Let me show you.

NexusTrade: the app that got me fired.

NexusTrade is an AI-powered, no-code algorithmic trading platform. I built it as a solo developer over the course of five years. Users can create automated trading strategies, backtest them against historical data, optimize parameters using genetic algorithms, and deploy them live through brokerage integrations with TradeStation, Public, Alpaca, and Tradier.

It supports US-listed stocks, ETFs, cryptocurrencies, and listed options including multi-leg spreads. It has an AI agent called Aurora that can research stocks, build portfolios, and execute multi-step tasks through natural language. Users can share their strategies publicly, copy-trade other users, or monetize their strategies with a monthly subscription.

Now let's look at what Coinbase claimed it "materially competes" with.

Coinbase Advisor: "The Financial Advisor experience, democratized."

What is Coinbase Advisor?

Coinbase Advisor is an AI-powered financial advisory tool built into the Coinbase app. It was announced on December 17, 2025 during Coinbase's "System Update 2025" livestream. It's provided through Coinbase Advisors, LLC, a CFTC-registered Commodity Trading Advisor and NFA member.

Coinbase is a multi-billion dollar publicly traded company. The tagline for Advisor: "The Financial Advisor experience, democratized."

Here's what it actually does: users type natural language requests like "Build me a portfolio" or "What's the latest market news?" The AI asks clarifying questions about risk tolerance and investment goals, evaluates the user's existing holdings, and generates a personalized asset allocation. Users can review, edit, and adjust the recommendations before executing. It is non-discretionary, meaning the AI never trades without the user's explicit permission.

As of early 2026, Coinbase Advisor is still in beta and available primarily to Coinbase One subscribers. Its investment frameworks were developed by a team of portfolio managers with over 75 years of combined experience from traditional asset management.

The Side-by-Side

Here is a fair, feature-by-feature comparison between the two products:

Feature	NexusTrade	Coinbase Advisor
Primary Function	Algorithmic trading platform	AI financial advisor / chatbot
US Stocks & ETFs	Yes	Planned (stock trading launched separately)
Options Trading	Yes (multi-leg spreads, Greeks)	No
Cryptocurrency	Yes	Yes
Algorithmic / Rule-Based Trading	Yes (no-code strategy builder)	No
Backtesting	Yes (OHLC and intraday, Rust engine)	No
Portfolio Optimization	Yes (genetic algorithms)	No
AI Assistant	Yes (Aurora agent)	Yes (core product)
Personalized Recommendations	Via AI	Yes (curated by portfolio managers)
External Brokerage Integration	Yes (4 brokerages)	No (Coinbase ecosystem only)
Copy Trading / Social	Yes	No
Strategy Monetization	Yes	No
MCP / API Access	Yes (32 tools)	No
DCA / Automated Buying	Yes	Yes
Yield / Staking	Partial (~3% via Alpaca)	Yes (USDC lending)
Regulatory Status	Independent platform	CFTC-registered CTA, NFA member
Team Size	1 person	Multi-billion dollar public company
Status	Live, public	Beta, waitlist

Where They Actually Overlap

Let me be honest about the overlap. Both products have an AI assistant. Both support cryptocurrency. Both allow dollar-cost averaging. These are real similarities.

But "both have AI" and "both support crypto" is an extraordinarily broad definition of competition. By that logic, any software engineer who has ever built a side project involving AI or cryptocurrency is a competitive threat to Coinbase. That's not a reasonable standard.

The core products are fundamentally different. NexusTrade is an algorithmic trading platform. You build rule-based strategies, backtest them against years of historical data, optimize them with genetic algorithms, and deploy them across four external brokerages. Coinbase Advisor is a conversational AI that recommends crypto allocations within the Coinbase ecosystem. One is an engine. The other is a chatbot.

The math: Out of 18 feature categories, the two products share 4 (crypto support, AI assistant, DCA, yield/staking). NexusTrade has 10 features that Coinbase Advisor does not. Coinbase Advisor has 1 feature (CTA registration) that NexusTrade does not. The overlap is 22%.

Coinbase decided that 22% overlap was enough to call it "material competition" and fire someone who disclosed the project before their first day.

What I Learned

I did everything right. I read my offer letter. I used AI to review it. I disclosed my project in writing before my first day. I cooperated with Legal. I offered concessions. I asked for a professional resolution.

None of it mattered.

The lesson here is uncomfortable but important: disclosure does not protect you. Having the rules on your side does not protect you. Cooperation does not protect you. When a company decides you're a problem, the process exists to justify the outcome, not to find the truth.

I'm not bitter. I'm building.

NexusTrade is still live. I'm still a one-man shop. And now I don't have to ask anyone's permission to work on the thing I've spent five years of my life creating.

If you want to check out the app that got me fired, you can find it at NexusTrade.io. If you've ever been in a similar situation, I'd genuinely like to hear your story.

And to my former team at Coinbase: I'm sorry I didn't get to say goodbye. You deserved better than that. So did I.

This article reflects my personal experience and perspective. The timeline and events described are based on my own records and recollections. I have not disclosed any confidential Coinbase information or intellectual property. All opinions expressed are my own.

DEV Community: Austin Starks