Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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News. You are coming off a big year. Coinbase joined the S&P 500. Congress ushered in first federal framework for stablecoins. I walked past your house in Davos and it said the future of finance is here.
Thank you for repeating the slogan.
Is it really, really here though or is there a long ways to go?
It is here. 2025 was a massive year for crypto. We started to get regulatory clarity, finally, in the US. So we got the Genius Act passed. In the wake of that, we saw 200 companies announce stablecoin integrations. Financial institutions are adopting this at an insane rate. We now power crypto infrastructure for five of the top 20 largest banks in the world. It's not just a US phenomenon.
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Chapter 2: What are the latest developments in the crypto regulatory landscape?
I don't know if you- A little bit of a blow up? All right, let's go there. Yeah. It seemed like a big blow up, but you pulled your support for the bill.
For that current draft? Yes. Yes.
Why?
Well, there was too many giveaways to TradFi, if I can say that. Our view is that there should be a level playing field for this is allowed, this is not allowed, and then all the US companies compete. And banks didn't like that. They were, in my view, like the commercial sides of these banks are very smart, and the CEOs get it, and they're talking to us about integrating crypto.
The bank lobbying groups and bank associations are out there trying to ban their competition. And I have zero tolerance for that. I think it's un-American. It harms consumers. And the banks need competition. They need to innovate. We also saw this from some of the securities broker lobbying groups, because tokenized equities are a big thing happening in crypto.
So there was three or four red line issues we saw in the draft text. And as I was in DC that day meeting with members of the Senate, I asked them, OK, is there a path to fix this after it comes out of committee? And they basically told me behind closed doors, if this comes out of committee with a bipartisan vote, we can't really help you on the full Senate floor.
And so I felt like I had to stand up and say something defending our customers' rights. I was careful not to opine on what the Senate should do in terms of a markup or not, and I was careful not to say anything.
We don't represent the whole crypto industry, but from a Coinbase point of view, I was not comfortable with the draft text as written, and I'm glad that everyone came back for another round of negotiation.
Well, other people have been saying stuff. So since we're going here now, a journalist from Crypto in America said a White House source told her this is President Trump's bill, not Brian Armstrong's bill at the end of the day, and that the White House is going to pull out if you don't come back to the table. You push back on this. What's really happening?
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Chapter 3: How is Coinbase addressing the bipartisan crypto bill?
And so there has to be some other solution here. How do we flip the banks from thinking of this as a threat to an opportunity where we can all go win?
Let's talk about the opportunity. You know, We started off talking about how crypto has had a lot of momentum lately. A lot of that was when crypto was on a tear. The markets have definitely pulled back over the last couple of months. So here, I know this is always your favorite question, but is winter coming?
Well, there's always short-term fluctuations in crypto, but I think, you know, if you look over the last two years, Bitcoin's up like 100%. Pretty great outcome for anybody who invested. You know, I've said publicly I think that Bitcoin could hit a million dollars by 2030. I still think that's true. So whatever happens in any given week or month, you know, we try not to track it too much.
It's the longer-term trend that I think is interesting.
So Bitcoin hit an all-time high last year, 125, 125,000. What about 2026? Let's do a shorter-term horizon. Where is it going in 2026?
Well, you know, I don't like to make short-term predictions because who knows? It's the market, you know, short-term voting machine, long-term weighing machine or whatever. So I think... I don't think people should be day trading unless you really want to do that. I'm more of a buy and hold kind of guy for the long term.
And I think that the cool thing about Bitcoin is that it doesn't, unlike fiat currency, there's no money printer, right? So the supply of it is fixed. It's finite. And so as more people integrate crypto and use crypto, there's more demand and finite supply. That only means the price can go up. That's why I said by 2030, I think it could hit a million dollars.
So you wrote a forward to a new paper this week that talks about the tokenizations of things like stocks and bonds and it's sort of like, you know, you believe that this gives people access to things, capital markets that they wouldn't have otherwise had.
So, you know, for the average person at home who might think that the stock market is this exclusive club and they can't get in, what's your vision here?
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Chapter 4: What challenges does Coinbase face with traditional banks?
And I think that if this market structure bill doesn't get moving, he may have something to say about that. And I think it's part of his agenda to get this second piece of legislation through.
But what are you advocating for when you do have time with him or you do have time with the White House?
Getting crypto legislation passed. That's pretty much all we talk about.
But legislation that you like.
Well, it should be fair for everybody so American companies can win. That's what he cares about, I think. Yeah.
Well, let's talk about that because clear rules of the road is obviously very important. But a Trump and Melania coin, like where do you draw the line?
Yeah. Well, you're getting a little above my pay grade on this. I think the Senate is deliberating this back and forth. There's arguments on both sides. There's ethics rules that are already in law. There's ways that presidents and elected officials raise money, like they sell t-shirts or whatever. Our democracy needs to figure this out. It's not our main focus.
Okay. Well, let's talk about that democracy. Stable coins are very popular in Venezuela, for example, crucial part of the economy. And there's this sort of lingering question, will crypto sort of be isolated to emerging markets, at least in a more mainstream way? Will they really break out? In what countries are you seeing the most traction and what kind of traction?
Mm-hmm.
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