Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong published a Medium post on Jan. 2 sharing his thoughts on how the crypto space has progressed over the last ten years.

Armstrong’s post, inspired by Fred Wilson’s article on technology over the past decade, begins with Bitcoin. Armstrong noted that the leading cryptocurrency hasn’t failed once in its birth ten-year history. Despite any doubt about Bitcoin’s survival, Armstrong pointed out that the digital currency has actually thrived.

“There were over 379 articles written, prematurely declaring the end of Bitcoin. Not only did Bitcoin survive, it thrived, becoming the top performing asset of the decade. The naysayers were proved wrong and we learned an important lesson about human nature: most big breakthroughs are contrarian ideas that people dismiss and ridicule at the start.”

Armstrong also took the opportunity to mention that his cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has also succeeded over the past decade, despite many thinking it wouldn’t. He wrote:

“When I was thinking about starting Coinbase, a few people told me I was crazy to try creating a custodial crypto wallet and exchange. The best hackers in the world were trying to break into crypto exchanges, and Mt. Gox along with many others had suffered breaches. Through a combination of luck and skill, Coinbase managed to weather the barrage of attacks, and created many novel methods of key storage which improved with every passing year.”

Since Coinbase was founded in 2012, the company has grown to operate in over 100 countries worldwide. Coinbase has also created core products to help cryptocurrency adoption and ease of use. The company created a Global Digital Asset Exchange (GDAX) for trading a variety of cryptocurrencies. Coinbase also offers an API for developers and merchants to build applications and accept payments in digital currencies.

He pointed out that while technology debates are common, there is a strong sense of emotion associated with digital currencies and blockchains. Armstrong wrote:

“I believe what made this more vitriolic than other technology debates I’ve seen (emacs vs vim, iOS vs Android, etc) is that once people own a particular coin they have an inherent conflict of interest and emotions take over.”

While this may be the case, Armstrong pointed out that strong emotions have helped advance the crypto and blockchain space, resulting in more than just one currency or blockchain taking lead.

He goes into much more detail on his Medium post, but Armstrong’s ten key takeaways are as follows: