Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: You are coming off a big year. Coinbase joined the
Speaker 2: S and P five hundred Congress asherdon first federal framework
Speaker 2: for stable coins. I walked past your house in Davos
Speaker 2: and it said the future of finance is here.
Speaker 3: Thank you for repeating the slogan.
Speaker 2: Is it really really here though? Or is there a
Speaker 2: long ways to go?
Speaker 1: It is here. Twenty twenty five was a massive year
Speaker 1: for cryptos. We started to get regulatory clarity finally in
Speaker 1: the US, so we got the Genius Act passed. In
Speaker 1: the wake of that, we saw two hundred companies announced
Speaker 1: stable coin integrations. Financial institutions are adopting this at an
Speaker 1: insane rate. We now power crypto infrastructure for five of
Speaker 1: the top twenty largest banks in the world.
Speaker 3: It's not just a US phenomenon.
Speaker 1: We're seeing incredible adoption of crypto in emerging markets where
Speaker 1: people have high inflation and stable coins are on a tear.
Speaker 1: Not to mention prediction markets, et cetera, et cetera. So
Speaker 1: I do think that we're to break out moment for
Speaker 1: crypto and yeah, it's a big opportunity.
Speaker 2: So who is your second year en Davos, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: who are you meeting with? What are your priorities?
Speaker 3: Yeah, for twenty.
Speaker 1: Twenty six, Well, we're meeting with world leaders to talk
Speaker 1: about economic freedom and how crypto can help update their
Speaker 1: financial system. We're meeting with central bank governors talk about
Speaker 1: what they should do with stable coins. But probably the
Speaker 1: most interesting one group that I'm meeting with here are
Speaker 1: other bank CEOs. Because we are having this moment in
Speaker 1: DC about getting market structured legislation passed, and the bills
Speaker 1: made good progress. It got a strong bipartisan vote in
Speaker 1: the House. It's now being deliberated in the Senate. And
Speaker 1: there was a little bit of a blow up last
Speaker 1: week and a little bit.
Speaker 2: Of a blow up. Oh right, let's go there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it wasn't It seemed a big like a big blowout.
Speaker 2: But you pulled your support for the bill for.
Speaker 3: That current draft.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, Why, well, there was too many giveaways to tradify.
Speaker 3: If I can say that, our view is that there should.
Speaker 1: Be a level playing field for this is allowed, this
Speaker 1: is not allowed, And then all the US companies compete
Speaker 1: and banks didn't like that. They were in my view,
Speaker 1: like the commercial sides of these banks are very smart
Speaker 1: and the CEOs get it, and they're talking to us
Speaker 1: about integrating crypto. The bank lobbying groups and bank associations
Speaker 1: are out there trying to ban their competition, and I
Speaker 1: have zero tolerance for that.
Speaker 3: I think it's un American.
Speaker 1: It harms consumers, and the banks need competition, they need
Speaker 1: to innovate. We also saw this from some of the
Speaker 1: securities broker lobbying groups, because you know, tokenized equities are
Speaker 1: a big thing happening in crypto. So there was three
Speaker 1: or four kind of redline issues we saw in the
Speaker 1: draft text. And as I was in DC that day
Speaker 1: meeting with members of the Senate, I asked them, Okay,
Speaker 1: is there a path to fix this after it comes
Speaker 1: out of committee? And they basically told me behind closed doors,
Speaker 1: if this comes out of committee where a bipartisan vote,
Speaker 1: we can't really help you on the full Senate floor.
Speaker 1: And so I felt like I had to stand up
Speaker 1: and say something defending our customers' rights. And I was
Speaker 1: careful not to appunt on what the Senate should do
Speaker 1: in terms of a markup or not, and I was
Speaker 1: careful not to say anything. We don't represent the whole
Speaker 1: crypto industry, but from a coinbase point of view. I
Speaker 1: was not comfortable with the draft text as written, and
Speaker 1: I'm glad that everyone came back for another round of negotiation.
Speaker 2: Well, other people have been saying stuff, so since we've
Speaker 2: we're going here now. A journalist from Crypto in America said,
Speaker 2: a White House source told her this is President Trump's bill,
Speaker 2: not Brian Armstrong's spill at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: and that the White House is going to pull out
Speaker 2: if you don't come back to the table you push
Speaker 2: back on this. What's really happening?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I mean this is not our bill.
Speaker 1: Actually, I give all the credit really to the Senate,
Speaker 1: and certainly President Trump has said that this is a
Speaker 1: core part of his crypto agenda. So my impression is
Speaker 1: that the White House is fully leaned in here and
Speaker 1: wants to get something done, as do we, as do
Speaker 1: the bank CEOs that I met with today. So I'm
Speaker 1: not seeing any real barriers here. There's some people who
Speaker 1: are a little grumpy. I think they got caught off
Speaker 1: guard that we didn't support the draft as is. But
Speaker 1: it's kind of like that metaphor of you know, three
Speaker 1: blind people looking at an elephant and everyone's trying to
Speaker 1: figure out. You know, there's probably somebody in the ministration
Speaker 1: who had that point of view, but that's not the
Speaker 1: people we're speaking with. I don't think have taken that approach.
Speaker 1: They actually very much want to get this done.
Speaker 2: Now there's this ongoing fighter about whether platforms can reward
Speaker 2: customers for holding sable coins, which coin is does The
Speaker 2: banks have argued this is a deposit flight risk. Is
Speaker 2: that the real sticking point? And what do you think
Speaker 2: about the flight risk concern?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's certainly one of the core parts of
Speaker 1: the debate. I think that some of the bank CEOs
Speaker 1: I've spoken with have kind of said, hey, we have
Speaker 1: this really high regulatory burden with being a bank, and
Speaker 1: what you're doing kind of looks like a bank, and
Speaker 1: so we think it's super unfair you should have to
Speaker 1: have a bank license too. And what I tell them is, well,
Speaker 1: we're not doing something very important that you do. We
Speaker 1: do not do fractional reserve lending, which means, for those
Speaker 1: who don't know, you know, at a bank you deposit
Speaker 1: your funds, they're not keeping your money there, they're actually
Speaker 1: lending it out, earning interest on that, and then they
Speaker 1: pay you a very small percentage of that, like the
Speaker 1: average savings account makes like fourteen basis points or something,
Speaker 1: and that's called net interest margin.
Speaker 3: And that's the whole bank business model.
Speaker 1: And so that's why they have such high regulatory burden,
Speaker 1: because there can be a run on the bank, Like
Speaker 1: your money is not all there in a crypto world,
Speaker 1: there's a one hundred percent reserve, so all your money
Speaker 1: is there. It eliminates this entire category of risk around
Speaker 1: a bank run. No such thing as possible if there's
Speaker 1: one hundred percent of the money there. And so we
Speaker 1: don't need a bank license. We're regulated by the SEC,
Speaker 1: the CFTC. We you know, we have a National Trust Charter,
Speaker 1: like there's different entities and stable coin issuers can operate
Speaker 1: under these models as well. And so we've kind of said,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't need a bank license. That's what
Speaker 1: currently already exists in the law. The Genius Act even
Speaker 1: enshrined that further. And so there has to be some
Speaker 1: other solution here. How do we flip the banks from
Speaker 1: thinking of this as a threat to an opportunity where
Speaker 1: we can all go win.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the opportunity. You know, we started off
Speaker 2: talking about how crypto has had a lot of momentum lately.
Speaker 2: A lot of that was when crypto was on a tear.
Speaker 2: The markets have definitely pulled back over the last couple
Speaker 2: of months. So here, I know this is always your
Speaker 2: favorite question, but is winter coming?
Speaker 1: Well, there's always short term fluctuations in crypto, but I
Speaker 1: think you know, if you look over the last two years,
Speaker 1: bitcoin's up like one hundred percent, pretty great outcome for
Speaker 1: anybody who invested. You know, I've said publicly I think
Speaker 1: that bitcoin could hit a million dollars by twenty thirty.
Speaker 1: I still think that's true. So whatever happens in any
Speaker 1: given week or month, you know, we try it to
Speaker 1: track it too much. It's the longer term trend that
Speaker 1: I think is interesting.
Speaker 2: So bitcoin hit an all time high last year one
Speaker 2: twenty five, one hundred twenty five thousand. What about twenty
Speaker 2: twenty six. Let's do a shorter term for horizon. Where
Speaker 2: is it going in twenty twenty six?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I don't like to make short term
Speaker 1: predictions because who knows. It's the market, you know, short
Speaker 1: term voting machine, long term wing machine, or whatever. So
Speaker 1: I think I don't think people should be like day trading,
Speaker 1: you know, unless you really want to do that.
Speaker 3: I'm more of a buy and hold kind of guy.
Speaker 1: For the long term, and I think that the cool
Speaker 1: thing about bitcoin is that it doesn't unlike fiat currency.
Speaker 1: There's no money printer, right, so the supply of it
Speaker 1: is fixed. It's finite, and so as more people integrate
Speaker 1: crypto and use crypto, there's more demand and finite supply.
Speaker 1: That only means the price that it can go up.
Speaker 1: That's why I said by twenty thirty, I think it
Speaker 1: could hit a million dollars.
Speaker 2: So you wrote a forward to a new paper this
Speaker 2: week that talks about the tokenizations of things like stocks
Speaker 2: and bonds, and it's sort of like, you know, you
Speaker 2: believe that this gives people access to things capital markets
Speaker 2: that they wouldn't have otherwise had. So, you know, for
Speaker 2: the average person at home who might think that the
Speaker 2: stock market is this exclusive club and they can't get in,
Speaker 2: what's your vision here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So tokenization is kind of a buzzword right now,
Speaker 1: and it is really important as a trend because the
Speaker 1: same thing that happened with stable coins, where you know,
Speaker 1: a dollar got tokenized and now suddenly people all over
Speaker 1: the world can use it, and there's fast, cheap global payments.
Speaker 1: The same thing is now happening in the equity market
Speaker 1: and every kind of asset class really that people might
Speaker 1: want to invest in. So there's about four billion adults
Speaker 1: right now who are unbrokered. You know, some people have
Speaker 1: heard about being unbanked. There's also about four billion people
Speaker 1: who are unbroken, meaning that they don't have any way
Speaker 1: to invest in high quality assets, whether that's American tech
Speaker 1: companies or the latest black Rock or Apollo fund.
Speaker 3: Or anything like that.
Speaker 1: And so when you tokenize it, there's a bunch of
Speaker 1: efficiency gains, but it's also about just democratizing access. And
Speaker 1: you know, there's sort of like this balance between you know,
Speaker 1: capital and labor, right and for people who only make
Speaker 1: their income from labor, they're oftentimes left out of this
Speaker 1: wealth creation engine, which is the ability to invest some
Speaker 1: of their hard earned money in high quality assets. So
Speaker 1: that's what we're trying to do with tokenization of every
Speaker 1: asset class.
Speaker 2: President trumpas said he wants to be the first crypto president.
Speaker 2: You've been to a few events with him, He's contributed
Speaker 2: to the ballroom the inauguration. How much time do you
Speaker 2: spend with him. What is your relationship like when you're
Speaker 2: advocating for how does he respond?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I do think he's done a good job
Speaker 1: of being very crypto forward and helping get some clear
Speaker 1: rules and legislation pass I go to DC about once
Speaker 1: a quarter, but that's not really usually to meet with
Speaker 1: the President's it's to meet with members of the Senate,
Speaker 1: our regulators, members of the House. When the bill was
Speaker 1: going through there alago, No, not yet, but yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I've met him a few times and found him
Speaker 1: to be constructive on this issue, and I think that
Speaker 1: if this market structure bill doesn't get moving, you know,
Speaker 1: he may have something to say about that. And I
Speaker 1: think it's part of his agenda to get this second
Speaker 1: piece of legislation through.
Speaker 2: But what are you advocating for when you do have
Speaker 2: time with him, and you do have time with the
Speaker 2: White House.
Speaker 1: Getting crypto legislation passed, that's pretty much all we talk about.
Speaker 1: But legislation that you like, Well, it should be fair
Speaker 1: for everybody so American companies can win.
Speaker 3: That's what he cares about. I think, yeah, well, let's.
Speaker 2: Talk of that about that, because clear rules of the
Speaker 2: road is obviously very important, but a Trump and Malania coin, Like,
Speaker 2: where do you draw the line.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you're getting a little above my pay grade
Speaker 1: on this. I think the Senate, you know, the Senate
Speaker 1: is deliberating this back and forth. There there's arguments on
Speaker 1: both sides. You know, there's like ethics rules.
Speaker 3: That are already in law.
Speaker 1: There's there's ways that presidents and elected officials raise money,
Speaker 1: like some they sell t shirts or whatever. Our democracy
Speaker 1: needs to figure this out. It's it's not our it's
Speaker 1: not our main focus.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, let's talk about that democracy. Stable coins are
Speaker 2: very popular in Venezuela, for example, crucial part of the economy.
Speaker 2: And there's this sort of lingering question will cryptos sort
Speaker 2: of be isolated to emerging markets at least in a
Speaker 2: more mainstream way. Will will they really break out in?
Speaker 2: What countries are you seeing the most traction and what
Speaker 2: kind of traction.
Speaker 1: Well, you're right that there are emerging markets where people
Speaker 1: have the least access to financial services and so they
Speaker 1: have kind of the biggest pain point, and we are
Speaker 1: seeing a lot of adoption I think by some metrics,
Speaker 1: like places like India and Turkey and Nigeria are actually
Speaker 1: like per capita, some of the biggest adopters of crypto.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't mean it's not going to be used
Speaker 1: in the United States. I mean, we started in the US.
Speaker 1: It's still the vast majority of our revenue, you know,
Speaker 1: we have there's something like fifty two million Americans who've
Speaker 1: actually used crypto at this point, so it's a massive,
Speaker 1: massive user base. I guess what we're seeing now is
Speaker 1: that people are using Coinbase as more like their primary
Speaker 1: financial account. There's kind of the younger generation who are
Speaker 1: growing up and they want to be able to, you know,
Speaker 1: deposit their paycheck trade crypto, but they also want to
Speaker 1: trade stocks, they want to trade prediction markets, they want
Speaker 1: to trade commodities, you know, they want to send money
Speaker 1: instantly anywhere in the world and maybe get alone and
Speaker 1: they can just get access to better financial services through
Speaker 1: an app like Coinbase.
Speaker 3: And so that's what we're trying to build.
Speaker 1: Whether we call that the everything exchange, where it's like
Speaker 1: literally every asset class tradable on one platform. So it's
Speaker 1: just this is a way to update financial services, and
Speaker 1: that's very much a US phenomenon as well.
Speaker 2: You've said developers who don't use AI at Coinbase will
Speaker 2: be fired how are they using AI or how are
Speaker 2: they supposed to be using AI? And what's the AI strategy?
Speaker 3: Is anyone not using AI?
Speaker 1: I think everyone is at this point. I mean, at
Speaker 1: least they're trying, right, and so that's all we ask.
Speaker 1: I mean, we want us to stay on the forefront
Speaker 1: of these tools. You know, we do have about fifty
Speaker 1: percent of our code being written by AI now, but
Speaker 1: of course with human review and strong security controls, and
Speaker 1: then it's answering about sixty percent of our customer sport tickets.
Speaker 1: I believe we're using it to automate some back office
Speaker 1: functions like compliance. But I actually think the most maybe
Speaker 1: the most interesting thing, because you know, AI and crypto,
Speaker 1: I think are the two most important technology trends happening
Speaker 1: in the world right now, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: don't realize they're actually quite complimentary. Because AI agents, increasingly
Speaker 1: new need to go get work done in the world,
Speaker 1: which includes making payments and in the traditional financial system,
Speaker 1: you know, to get a credit card or bank count
Speaker 1: or something, all the rules and rigs are built around
Speaker 1: identifying a human being who's linked to that underlying account
Speaker 1: or card. And in this new world, AI agents need
Speaker 1: their own wallets to go and make payments, and so
Speaker 1: we believe that stable coins and crypto wallets are going
Speaker 1: to be the default payment mechanism of AI agents. And
Speaker 1: we've actually built some really cool tools that people have
Speaker 1: now started to integrate. So eventually, I think AI agents
Speaker 1: are going to make more transactions every day than humans.
Speaker 2: Do you see them, you know, in crypto managing portfolios,
Speaker 2: executing trades.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we launched a prototype of an app or a feature,
Speaker 1: beta feature I should say, called coin Based Advisor, and
Speaker 1: it does help people do these kinds of services that
Speaker 1: are typically available need to networth clients, right, you could say,
Speaker 1: you know, heart tax loss harvesting and rebalance my portfolio
Speaker 1: and notify, you know, notify me if the market goes
Speaker 1: down and there's some good opportunities, and so we do
Speaker 1: have an AI agent service that people can use for that.
Speaker 2: Now you've entered the prediction markets and the you know,
Speaker 2: associated legal battles. How does this play out and what's
Speaker 2: the opportunity for coinbase.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, so it's part of our Everything's change vision.
Speaker 1: We think everything should be tradable, but prediction markets are
Speaker 1: of this really important new emerging category.
Speaker 3: So i'd say, prediction markets. There's a few parts to it.
Speaker 1: So some of it, frankly is people, you know, betting
Speaker 1: on these outcomes and sporting games and things like that.
Speaker 3: That's okay, that's one thing.
Speaker 1: The more intellectually interesting part of it to me is
Speaker 1: that people are also betting on what's going to happen
Speaker 1: in the next week or two, almost as an alternative
Speaker 1: to traditional media. You know, sorry not to create a
Speaker 1: competitive thing here, and they're trying to. So it could
Speaker 1: be on a political election, it could be what are
Speaker 1: interest rate's going to be next quarter? It could be
Speaker 1: is the Suez Canal going to be reopened? Because I
Speaker 1: need to understand if I can put my ships through
Speaker 1: there as a multinational And so people are just trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what is true, what is going to
Speaker 1: happen in the future, And what we've found is that
Speaker 1: there's much higher signal when people have to put skin
Speaker 1: in the game with real money. So I think that
Speaker 1: prediction markets are potentially an alternative to traditional media in
Speaker 1: some way. The other crazy idea that could emerge here
Speaker 1: is that I think policy legislators will use it to
Speaker 1: understand what policy could be best. So, for instance, if
Speaker 1: there's three proposals, and you want to say which one
Speaker 1: is going to lower unemployment the most. You can actually
Speaker 1: put those proposals out where if they aren't acted, and
Speaker 1: this happens, you.
Speaker 3: Could get a payout.
Speaker 1: The market will basically give you very clear feedback about
Speaker 1: which policy they most believe should be implemented, and maybe
Speaker 1: that helps legislators decide what to do.
Speaker 2: As you mentioned, just striving to be this everything exchange,
Speaker 2: not just prediction markets, but you know, you know trading essentially,
Speaker 2: Robinhood and others got their first. How much traction are
Speaker 2: you seeing in some of these newer products.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we just announced stock trading on coinbase prediction
Speaker 1: markets back in December, and we've seen really rapid growth
Speaker 1: of that since then. You know, we also have a number,
Speaker 1: we actually now have millions of assets, believe it or not,
Speaker 1: crypto assets you can trade on Coinbase, so it's far
Speaker 1: ahead of the competition one you mentioned in others. And
Speaker 1: we also allow people to trade CFTC regulated perpetual style
Speaker 1: futures on Coinbase, which is which is unique. So I
Speaker 1: would say we caught up on the things that we
Speaker 1: were behind on, and we're actually pretty far ahead on
Speaker 1: some of the other ones.
Speaker 2: President Trump pardon the founder of Finance. Speaking of competition,
Speaker 2: there's speculation they might try to re enter the United States.
Speaker 2: How are you preparing for that?
Speaker 1: Well, there's a number of crypto companies that grew up
Speaker 1: internationally that have tried at various points to come into
Speaker 1: the US.
Speaker 3: So far they haven't been successful.
Speaker 1: I mean, we have the strongest brand and the most
Speaker 1: trusted brand in crypto, certainly in the US and a
Speaker 1: number of other countries where we're the leader. The way
Speaker 1: I think about this is that our strategy really we
Speaker 1: call it like our asset accumulation strategy. So because we
Speaker 1: have the most trusted brand, people feel comfortable storing their
Speaker 1: assets with us.
Speaker 3: We now have about half a trillion.
Speaker 1: Dollars of assets, and assets tend to be pretty sticky,
Speaker 1: you know, people don't move them very often. And if
Speaker 1: you the more products you can connect into those those assets,
Speaker 1: people are less.
Speaker 3: Likely to churn, right.
Speaker 1: So that's why we're offering more trading products and defive
Speaker 1: borrow leend and coin based card and all these kinds
Speaker 1: of things, and so we can monetize better. The more
Speaker 1: products we have plug into those assets, we can invest
Speaker 1: that back in Backing being the most trusted and this
Speaker 1: asset accumulation fly will just accelerate.
Speaker 3: So we're storing more crypto assets.
Speaker 1: Than any other company in the world I'm aware of,
Speaker 1: by a pretty wide margin, and I think that's going
Speaker 1: to be defensible for a long time.
Speaker 2: You know, there's you know, we talked earlier about winter,
Speaker 2: and there is this concern that there's a downturn for
Speaker 2: the crypto market coming. You know, are you doing anything
Speaker 2: to prepare for that? You know, in an historically Coinbus
Speaker 2: has been an acquirer in some of these situations. Do
Speaker 2: you see the potential to make some big buys or like,
Speaker 2: you know, potential opportunity to consolidate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, for just to be clear, I'm not necessarily
Speaker 1: seeing a crypto downturn coming.
Speaker 3: I'm the sure. I think there's just.
Speaker 2: Concern because prices have dropped that this could signal that
Speaker 2: maybe we're in for some more extended lower prices.
Speaker 1: To me, that just sort of happens every every month.
Speaker 1: It's either up or down. So I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't think about it too much. But we did acquire
Speaker 1: I believe ten companies last year, and yeah, there's opportunities
Speaker 1: in any market. When the market is up, we are
Speaker 1: just trying to scale and onboard new users and double
Speaker 1: down on the hype. And you know, when markets are down,
Speaker 1: we do get a inquisitive we can we could buy
Speaker 1: back our stock. There's all kinds of opportunities in any
Speaker 1: market condition.
Speaker 2: Now it's interesting because in a room and Davos, your
Speaker 2: you know, coinbases seems to be the iconoclast, but you know,
Speaker 2: you're in the in the crypto and the decentralized world.
Speaker 2: You're closer to banks, closer to politicians than maybe others.
Speaker 2: How do you manage this sort of various and competing
Speaker 2: streams and spirits of crypto.
Speaker 3: That's that's a great point.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I remember in one day sometimes I
Speaker 1: go speak with, you know, members of the government and
Speaker 1: bank CEOs, and then I also go to like crypto
Speaker 1: meetups where there's a bunch of hackers and they're like,
Speaker 1: why are you dressed like a banker? And you know,
Speaker 1: so we try we've tried to be a bridge between
Speaker 1: the crypto world and the exist traditional financial world because
Speaker 1: most of the money still resides in the traditional financial
Speaker 1: system and we need to be a bridge to get
Speaker 1: more and more of it into the crypto world, so
Speaker 1: everything can be more efficient and global and cheap.
Speaker 3: So, you know, I try to speak. I feel like
Speaker 3: I'm a translator.
Speaker 1: I speak a little bit of bank and I speak hacker,
Speaker 1: and you know, I try to translate between two.
Speaker 2: How have your own leadership skills evolved? I mean, obviously
Speaker 2: it's been a I interviewed you in the very very
Speaker 2: early days and seeing you personally evolve, how have you evolved?
Speaker 2: How have especially as the system has evolve, not evolved
Speaker 2: and the market just fluctuates madly, Like, how have you
Speaker 2: sort of maintained your You have a spring wardrobe, a
Speaker 2: winter wardrobe.
Speaker 1: I wear the uniform all, you know, just the same.
Speaker 1: I wear the same thing to work every day. Unless
Speaker 1: I'm at Davos or of the East Coast, I wear
Speaker 1: a suit. But I mean it's like anybody evolves, right
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I started, I really was. I
Speaker 1: was a software engineer earlier in my career, kind of
Speaker 1: shy and introverted, to be honest, and I had never
Speaker 1: managed anybody before starting coinbase. And then you know, but
Speaker 1: you start off and you've got three people and ten
Speaker 1: people and twenty five people, and there were periods where
Speaker 1: we went through hypergrowth where I felt like I was
Speaker 1: in way over my head, you know. And I had
Speaker 1: a great board around me, I hired some great executives,
Speaker 1: I had some good executive coaches, you know, but building
Speaker 1: a company stressful.
Speaker 3: We now have about five thousand people.
Speaker 1: I certainly I learned from a lot of the great
Speaker 1: people that were around me in the board and the.
Speaker 3: Executives that I hired.
Speaker 1: I guess there were certain moments as well where I
Speaker 1: felt like I had to send something was the right
Speaker 1: thing to do, but I knew it would it would
Speaker 1: be controversial, and that's actually where I think that grew
Speaker 1: the most as a leader. So a couple examples of
Speaker 1: that where we put out this mission first blog post
Speaker 1: back in the height of kind of that activist area,
Speaker 1: and we said that we're not going to do political
Speaker 1: activism inside the workplace. We're going to focus on our mission,
Speaker 1: which sounds kind of obvious now, but at the time
Speaker 1: that was incredibly controversial. When the sec you know, unlawfully
Speaker 1: in our view, came out and tried to kill the
Speaker 1: crypto industry, we sued them. A lot of people told me,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, do not sue your federal regulator. That's
Speaker 1: a terrible idea as a public company. But I knew
Speaker 1: that the alternative was it would essentially have killed the
Speaker 1: industry in America, and I couldn't allow that.
Speaker 3: So we did sue them and we won. So that
Speaker 3: was a contrarian view, you know.
Speaker 1: I would say, Actually, this market Structure bill last week
Speaker 1: was another example of that, where I read through the
Speaker 1: draft text.
Speaker 3: Our lawyers were looking at it, and I said, this
Speaker 3: is wrong.
Speaker 1: You know, this would harm consumers in America. To me,
Speaker 1: it's un American and it's unethical for regulatory capture to happen.
Speaker 1: I don't care how many bank lobbyists there are or whatever.
Speaker 1: You know, you can't come in and write a bill
Speaker 1: that enshrines the incumbent and creates an un level tries
Speaker 1: to ban their competition. Like, I'm just not going to
Speaker 1: stand for that. I have zero tolerance, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to say it publicly. And it pissed some people off,
Speaker 1: but I think it's going to help us get to
Speaker 1: the right outcome on this bill, and I feel that's
Speaker 1: the kind of leadership that I want to exemplify.
Speaker 3: In the world.
Speaker 2: All Right, So I've been asking this question about AI,
Speaker 2: but I'm gonna ask it about crypto. Ten years from now.
Speaker 2: What is the biggest mistake people in this room will
Speaker 2: have made about crypto?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, if they don't have at least five
Speaker 1: percent of their net worth and bitcoin, they're probably gonna
Speaker 1: be pretty sad. So I think, you know, the last
Speaker 1: ten years, bioin was the best performing asset class. A
Speaker 1: lot of people missed out, but it's still early days.
Speaker 3: I think, just in.
Speaker 1: General, we're going to see crypto update all kinds of
Speaker 1: financial services. And even if people who don't really care
Speaker 1: anything about crypto, they don't even know what it is,
Speaker 1: they're going to benefit from it because they're going to say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: this is just I can earn more rewards on my money,
Speaker 1: or I can get a loan for a cheaper rate,
Speaker 1: or I can send money instantly to my family abroad
Speaker 1: out another country without paying eleven percent fees. Or I
Speaker 1: want to raise money to build a real estate project
Speaker 1: or a film or whatever a media company and instead
Speaker 1: of paying you know, ten to eleven percent to some
Speaker 1: firm to raise money for you can do it instantly
Speaker 1: on chain. So I think that, yeah, that's where we've
Speaker 1: been sitting in ten years, with a greatly improved, updated
Speaker 1: financial system, and hope we get to play a role
Speaker 1: in creating that.
Speaker 2: To the moon, To the moon, all right, Brian Armstrong,
Speaker 2: thank you
Speaker 3: Thank you great