Brian Armstrong, CEO and Co-Founder, Coinbase, speaks during the Milken Institute Global Conference on May 2, 2022. in Beverly Hills, California.
Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | Getty Images
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the crypto platform aims to become one of the biggest financial services companies in the world in a few years, aided by traditional players who continue adopting crypto at an accelerating rate.
Asked on the company’s call with analysts this week if Coinbase plans to enter traditional finance, Armstrong said that rather than look backward, he “wants to look forwards and skate to where this opportunity is going.”
“Today, we’re primarily focused on trading and payments … across our major customer groups: retail, small [and] medium sized businesses, institutions and developers,” Armstrong said on the quarterly earnings call Thursday.
“In five- to 10 years, our goal is to be the number one financial services app in the world across those customer segments because we believe that crypto is eating financial services, and we are the number one crypto company,” he added. “All these asset classes – money market funds, real estate, securities, debt – these are all coming on chain.”
Expanding platform
Coinbase operates primarily as a cryptocurrency exchange. Over the years it has added other products and services focused on non-trading aspects of crypto for retail and institutional users alike – including payments via stablecoins, rewards through stablecoins and staking and custody for institutions. BlackRock, Stripe and PayPal are among more than 200 institutional customers for those services.
This week, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) cleared the U.S. banks that it regulates to buy and sell and act as custodian of crypto assets for customers, joining the Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in rolling back restrictive crypto rules in the past two months. In 2023, all three agencies had cautioned banks against partnering with the industry or offering crypto services.
As the Trump administration loosens regulatory constraints on crypto and Congress stands on the verge of passing stablecoin legislation later this year, traditional institutions have shown more interest in expanding into crypto-related services. In February, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said the Charlotte-based lender could introduce a stablecoin if regulation allows.
“We think that every major bank is going to be integrating crypto at some point … it’s technology to update the financial system,” Armstrong said. “We can power a variety of things for them. [For] some of them, it’s a custodial solution. Others are interested in having a stablecoin solution.”
“We’ve seen some interest where banks and other companies will want to create their own stablecoin,” he continued. “Our view is that that’s not necessarily the best path because stablecoins have network effects. You want interoperability with other financial institutions to be able to settle payments and do all kinds of things.”
Biggest driver
Stablecoins have become Coinbase’s biggest driver of revenue after trading. In the first quarter, revenue tied to stablecoins soared 50% from the year-earlier period and 32% from the fourth quarter. Coinbase is a cofounder of the popular USDC stablecoin, has a 50% revenue sharing agreement with issuer Circle and also makes 100% of the interest earned by USDC products on the Coinbase platform.
Armstrong has said Coinbase has a “stretch goal” to make USDC the number 1 stablecoin in the world, a position ccurrently held by Tether’s USDT.
“If you can get shared economics, I don’t see why we wouldn’t see more of these banks partnering with USDC,” Armstrong said. “Regardless, we at Coinbase can help power infrastructure for all these folks that are coming into the industry … that’s a big part of our plan.”
