The CEO is declaring the focus political issue is cryptocurrency.

The focus is not whales, forests, ice caps, malaria.

Why is this controversial?

Interesting definition, so if his crypto platform (hypothetical) is getting used by mafia and for 'tax minimisation' thats apolitical? And if I raise a stink about it, I am an activist?

If a company is breaking the law, some countries offer whistleblower protections.

Well tax minimisation is not illegal - supposedly starbucks can pay less taxes in UK than I do alone

Probably because none of these things exist in a vacuum. Simply because we give a title to an "area of political focus" doesn't mean that it exists in it's own silo, unimpaired by decisions in any other area of political focus.

What happens when your area of political focus crosses tracks with another area of political focus and you're faced with a trolley problem? Do you simply steam ahead regardless of the overall impact or do you consider the overall impact?

"That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen" [1] applies to all policies, not simply those undertaken by states.

[1]: http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html

All entities including businesses commonly make tradeoffs between competing values. I am unaware how Coinbase plan to do this.

Outside the mission, it sounds like Coinbase won't factor these matters beyond the usual legal/reputation, the same as the majority of businesses.

Governments are best placed to guide prosocial behaviour.

For the record, I am pro sustainable fishing, sustainable foresty, tackling climate change, and eliminating malaria.

I think governments and dedicated organisations are best placed to do this: they can better enforce compliance, and have greater visibility on all of our pressing needs.

for a start, you've just separated "cryptocurrency" from "ice caps", when Bitcoin generates country-sized quantities of CO2.

It sounds like Coinbase doesn't consider climate change to be within their mission.

We need to place a place on carbon, and thus share responsibility, in proportion to use.

Very different than campaigning for BLM or MAGA at work.

Yes, which can be interesting to both leftists, rightists, and whatever other directionist you might wish to delineate.

It isn't politically neutral technology, sure-- but it's largely orthogonal to many other political concerns. This is good too, because an alternative money isn't particularly valuable unless it's useful to a broad spectrum of people.

I could easily imagine a cryptocurrency org that didn't have a culture of leaving your politics/religion at home -- at least to the extent that they didn't directly interact with your work-- could quickly become an extremely toxic and unproductive place.

Cryptocurrency represents a kind of financial libertarianism, that people should be able to own their money and be their own bank. It doesn't have much to say about aspects of life outside of that. It is political because of vested interests.