Coinbase CEO's Top 3 Crypto Trends for 2026 + More from Davos!

**Jason Calacanis** (0:00)
This guy is literally going to hover over us. This pilot hates podcasting. What a prick. The besties are broadcasting from the USA house at the World Economic Forum. Our episode is sponsored by the New York Stock Exchange. Are you looking to change the world and raise capital? Do it at the NYSE. The NYSE is a modern marketplace and a massive platform built for scale and long-term impact. So if you're building for the future, the NYSE is where it happens.
I'm Jason Calacanis. This is the All-In interview show. Last minute, we got added to the roster here at the World Economic Forum, and we had time to do a half dozen interviews. And Brian was here. And this is your Brian Armstrong from Coinbase, of course, and friend of the pod. This is probably your fourth or fifth appearance on the pod. You come to Davos because this actually isn't for you about networking. This is about serious regulations on a global basis, yeah?

**Brian Armstrong** (1:10)
Well, that's been the focus of this attendance at Davos is we are trying to get market structure legislation done for crypto. But actually, I mean, there is a lot of networking that happens here. We've done a lot of commercial meetings, you know, five of the top 20 global banks are now using Coinbase to build their crypto infrastructure into their products. We meet with heads of leaders of different countries and talk to them about economic freedom and how crypto can update their financial system. So there's all kinds of good meetings.

**Jason Calacanis** (1:35)
So you had embedded in there these partnerships with banks. Is that like a white label type thing so they can sell crypto to their customers? Is it disclosed which banks are doing that and how that works?

**Brian Armstrong** (1:47)
A couple of them are public. We've talked about integration with JPMorgan, PNC Bank.
You know, there's a couple of others that are not public yet, but five of the top 20 GSIBs are now using Coinbase for that. And then we're also powering integrations with like BlackRock. And they've said they want to tokenize every single one of their funds. And so a lot of these financial institutions are coming on chain, which is great.

**Jason Calacanis** (2:10)
And this is quite, I mean, I was thinking on the way over here how you've really struggled to work with regulators over the last decade. I remember under the Biden administration, the 46th administration, you went to DC and were like, I'm here. I would love to talk to you. And they were like, yeah, we don't want to talk to you.
Now, some people might have varying feelings about Donald J. Trump or 47th president. But one thing he has nailed is interfacing with the business community and taking regulation and creating a legal path for crypto specifically, very seriously. What's the, how's the last year? How have things changed for you in the last year?

**Brian Armstrong** (2:53)
Yeah, well, I know you like to call balls and strikes. And I think just looking at it objectively, you know, the Biden administration really tried to unlawfully kill this industry in America from my point of view. And Donald J. Trump, you got to give him credit. I mean, he campaigned on this idea of making the United States the crypto capital of the world. He's kept his promises. He's leaned in and tried to get clear rules and regulations passed so that American companies can thrive, American consumers can earn more money on their money. And he understands also it's an important political issue. There's a huge base of, there's like 52 million Americans who've used crypto now. Right. And they want to see clear rules. They want to see this, you know, get better financial services in the United States. It's also, frankly, a global competitiveness issue, right? I mean, China just announced that they're going to pay interest on their central bank digital currency. Some of the largest stablecoin issuers are still offshore. He wants to repatriate that capital and bring it into the US.

**Jason Calacanis** (3:46)
This is the crazy thing we went through. I was never a fan, calling balls and strikes, of people doing things that weren't buttoned up. But I was even less of a fan of the prior administration just not meeting and saying, hey, this is uniquely different. Let's figure out a way to give you a path to do it properly. And so, you know, in our industry, sometimes you have to reinterpret rules. Airbnb, Uber, the biggest success of my investment career, they're like, they've bent rules too. Crypto bent some rules. Some cases people broke them and they paid the price. But here we are. Now the rule set is being refined. The most important one, I think, for you is stable coins and your competition with the bank. You have banks as partners, but you're also a competitor to them. Yeah.