All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong Breaks Down the Three Biggest Trends in Crypto + More from Davos!
23 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This f***ing guy is literally going to hover over us.
Chapter 2: What are the biggest trends in crypto adoption discussed by Brian Armstrong?
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.
Chapter 3: How is Coinbase collaborating with major banks for crypto integration?
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. 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 there 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
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?
A couple of them are public. We've talked about integration with JP Morgan, PNC Bank. You know, there's a couple of those 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, you know, 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.
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 D.C. 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. Mm hmm.
Now, some people might have varying feelings about Donald Day Trump, our 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. How have things changed for you in the last year?
Yeah, well, I know you like to call balls and strikes. And I think just looking at it objectively, 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.
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Chapter 4: What challenges does Brian Armstrong face with crypto regulations?
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. 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 U.S.,
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 in our industry, sometimes you have to reinterpret rules.
Airbnb, Uber, the biggest success of my investment career, they 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 stablecoins and your competition with the bank. You have banks as partners, but you're also a competitor to them, yeah?
Well, I'd say it's mostly collaborative. I'd say of the bank CEOs that I've met with here, most of them are actually very into crypto. They're starting to integrate it. I met with one of the top 10 global banks in the world yesterday, and the CEO told me, crypto is my number one priority. We view that this is existential. We're all in. We're going to put it all in.
Why is it existential for them?
Why do you think? It's like when the internet came around, and you had Amazon competing with Barnes and Noble, or you had blogs competing with New York Times in print, right? Yes. And so there's always change happening in the world. And you can think of it as an opportunity, or you can think of it as a threat and bury your head in the sand and pretend it's not happening.
But the reality is that crypto is massive. Something like 500 million people have used it globally. Bitcoin was the best performing asset class of the last decade.
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Chapter 5: How does AI impact the future of robotics and automation?
The largest financial institutions of the world are now integrating this. And so at this point, I think it's foolish to pretend that this isn't happening. And we also, by the way, have the Genius Act. The stablecoin bill is now passed into law. So we're not going to undo that. That is law of the land. Congress just put that into law.
And it's very important becauseā What David Sachs, my bestie, I think led there was these have to be audited. These have to be above board. We can't have a run on stable coins, which, let's face it, people anticipated Tether would have at some point. There were lots of fines they got. There was these attestations. People didn't know if they even had the resources they had.
And now it's pretty clear you have to keep your assets in treasuries, correct?
Yeah.
It's correct. Under the Genius Act that got passed into law last year, U.S. regulated stablecoins have to have 100% of the assets stored in short-term U.S. treasuries.
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Chapter 6: What role do AI and robotics play in improving efficiency in industries?
So something like 30-day treasuries are the max, I believe. So that's pretty much the safest thing you can get. You're basically trusting the United States government is not going to fail in 30 days, which I think is a pretty safe bet.
I'm going to go safe bet.
Yeah. And I've been making this point as well that banks do something called fractional reserve lending. They actually don't store all your money there. They're lending it out. That's why they have such high regulatory overhead, because there can be a run on the bank. And it gives them a very unique business model. They can basically lend it out.
The old joke is you lend it out at 6%, you pay 3%, and you're on the you know, the tee time by three o'clock or whatever. But that business model is not available to you unless you have a bank license. But in a stablecoin world with 100% reserves, you don't need a bank license for that. And you can give people more money. Because it's safer.
And we saw this Silicon Valley bank essentially had mistimed their allocations with treasuries, I guess. And what happened? They had a run on the bank.
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Chapter 7: How is the energy sector adapting to AI and robotics technologies?
Literally I was in a board meeting and in the board meeting on, I think it was a Thursday and the run happened Thursday afternoon. I get a text like, get your money out of Silicon Valley Bank. I'm in the board meeting. We're having, it's on the docket, like the third thing is to talk about Silicon Valley Bank. And we have 100% of our money in there.
Two of the board members are like, we can't just take all the money out of Silicon Valley Bank. They've been incredible partners for 30 years. I said, how about we take out half so we can make payroll? I insisted. Literally that night, boom. And so the key issue now is your business model. You need to have revenue. And the revenue from these stable coins is paying some interest.
And the people who are putting their money in there being able to make some interest on their hard-earned capital. Yeah, that's the sticking point for you.
Yeah, and it's not interest, it's a rewards program. This was carefully negotiated in the Genius Act. And yes, that's our view. I mean, look, in my opinion, it's actually- What's the difference there?
The reward program, we should think of it like American Express points?
Yeah, I mean- There's lots of credit card reward programs. But the difference legally is that rewards can't be based solely on the balance you're holding. The customer has to do some sort of other activity, like payments or trading, or they have a subscription to Coinbase One.
So when customers do that, we actually pass along about 100% of the economics to them for holding those stablecoins with us. And that's a big driver of growth. You know, there's always been this balance between do people want to put their money in money markets or do they want to put it as bank deposits? I think that crypto is not really new in that dimension.
Like, it's just another flavor of this happening. And there's been a lot of hand-wringing about, you know, this is going to destroy all the lending market. And, like, I don't think that's true. Like, money markets are already trillions of dollars and there's high-yield checking accounts.
haven't had to deal with a disruptive competitor, a technology competitor who's really good at what they're doing. So they're a little bit nervous about their franchise.
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Chapter 8: What are the implications of AI on job displacement and employment?
And you want to partner with them. You want to enable it. You have a good partnership with Jeremy Allaire, old friend of mine at Circle. Are they like the default stable coin in Coinbase? Or how do you think about the relationship with them? How should we think about the relationship with them?
Yes, we've got a strong relationship with Circle. And USDC is the largest regulated stablecoin because it is compliant under Genius in the US. They're compliant under Mika in Europe, et cetera, et cetera. There's another one that you're familiar with, which is still bigger. Tether, yeah. But I think it's in the process of being shifted more.
They're trying to clean it up, is my understanding. Yeah. so that they can participate. The likely scenario is there'll be two tethers, a United States one, and then that complies, and then there'll be the Wild West one outside the US. Is that what you've heard as well?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and I should mention, we don't have like an exclusive with Circle or anything like that. We actually list other stable coins on our platform. Do you list Tether? We support it in certain ways, especially people who want to convert Tether. But we support it. We also support PayPal, Stablecoin. We're open to listing others, too. So we don't have an exclusive on USDC.
Yeah, but you're not endorsing it.
And do you let people trade into Tether or just let them trade out of Tether? How does it work mechanically?
I think it's different in different countries. I want to make sure I get it exactly right. But in countries where we're allowed to do it, I mean, we support Tether. It's nuanced.
Are you concerned about, or have you been historically concerned about Tether and their little bit of a loosey-goosey approach to regulations and trading?
I'm giving it that descriptor, not you, but I would think having it on your platform with regulators pretty focused on it over the last five or 10 years and this belief that this thing could all come apart and create a run, that to you is just not worth the risk to be too close to it in case it does flip over, yeah?
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