Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong Aims to Revolutionize Personal Finance

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong envisions the leading US crypto exchange platform becoming customers’ go-to financial account. In a recent interview with CNBC Television, Armstrong outlined plans to introduce features that could entice customers to favor Coinbase over traditional bank accounts.

Armstrong emphasized the potential of digital money and mobile banking, noting, “In the banking world, they do something called fractional reserve and it has its own regulatory requirements for that. We’re not intending to become a bank, but we are intending to become people’s primary financial accounts.”

He highlighted the shift towards mobile money, predicting a future where “your phone is your bank account.” Armstrong elaborated, “There’s going to be a whole generation of kids who grew up and they’re not going to have a bank branch on the corner with a checkbook in the way that maybe you and I did growing up. Their phone is going to be their wallet. That’s how they get paid. It’s how they live their lives and borrow money if and when they need to.”

Expanding Features and Services

To realize this vision, Coinbase is expanding its features. Armstrong pointed out, “We have the beginnings of that with Coinbase Card, which lets you spend. We have USD Coin if you want to hold US dollar balances. And in the future, you can imagine us adding other features like the ability to send a wire transfer or bank transfer, and then it could really be your primary financial account.”

Armstrong also highlighted the rapid adoption of crypto by major players in traditional finance. “Fifty-six percent of the Fortune 500 are now doing something on-chain,” he stated. “The biggest companies in the world, whether it’s BlackRock tokenizing real-world assets, JP Morgan is doing things on-chain with Onyx, Google Cloud is accepting crypto payments, fintechs like Stripe and PayPal are doing things with stablecoins. So I think crypto is here to stay and the biggest companies in the world are all integrating it.”