Frederick "Fred" Ernest Ehrsam III[1] is an American businessman, and the co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase[2] and the venture investment firm Paradigm.

[3] He played video games professionally in high school, and was an avid World of Warcraft player, which introduced him to the concept of in-game digital currencies.

[6][7] After graduating from Duke, Ehrsam became a foreign exchange trader at the investment bank Goldman Sachs in New York City.

[4] In 2012, Ehrsam and Brian Armstrong co-founded Coinbase in an apartment in San Francisco, as a way for cryptocurrency enthusiasts to trade bitcoins and other digital currencies.

[10] In 2018, Ehrsam co-founded cryptocurrency investment firm Paradigm with former Sequoia Capital investor Matt Huang.