Kevin Durant has access restored to Coinbase bitcoin account after years

NBA star Kevin Durant has regained access to his bevy of bitcoins, years after getting locked out of his Coinbase account. 

“We got this fixed. Account recovery complete,” Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said Friday in a social media post, replying to a tweet about Durant being locked out of his account on the cryptocurrency exchange. 

The message comes just a few days after Durant and his agent Rich Kleiman joked about the predicament at CNBC’s Game Plan conference in Los Angeles.

“It’s just a process we haven’t been able to figure out,” Kleiman said Tuesday, referencing Coinbase’s account retrieval protocol. “But, bitcoin keeps going up … so, I mean, it’s only benefited us.” 

Durant purchased bitcoins on Coinbase in 2016, shortly after hearing about the token several times during a dinner with his then-Golden State Warriors teammates. 

Bitcoin was trading at between roughly $360 and $1,000 in 2016, CoinGecko’s data shows. Now, the digital asset is trading at around $116,000, according to the same crypto data provider. 

Durant and his agent, who are investors in Coinbase Global and promote the business on their sports and entertainment website Boardroom, did not disclose the size of the basketball player’s bitcoin holdings on the trading platform.

The case has sparked a wider discussion about Coinbase’s customer services, with several users recounting on social media their difficulties receiving assistance from the company to regain access to their accounts and troubleshoot other issues. 

Their complaints form the latest calls for Coinbase to overhaul its support services. In May, Coinbase revealed that cybercriminals had bribed a few of its overseas customer support agents to leak customers’ personal data. In 2021, Coinbase clients expressed their frustrations over the company’s new live phone support line, with one dissatisfied user telling CNBC at the time that the service was “a joke.” 

On Friday, Armstrong addressed users’ latest concerns over the quality of the firm’s support services.

“We’re putting a big focus on getting better at customer support at both ends – improving products so fewer people need support, and providing a faster, higher quality experience when you do,” Armstrong said Friday in an X post. 

Coinbase did not immediately reply to CNBC’s request for additional comment on what measures it would take to improve its customer service. Earlier this week, the company told CNBC that it provides an around-the-clock assistance hotline for its users, in addition to offering self-help resources for basic troubleshooting.