Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong talks Trump's crypto push & attending the White House summit

I'm joined now by Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase. Brian, thank you so much for joining me. It's great to see you. Thank you for having me. So what were your takeaways from the summit? Well, President Trump really breathed life back into this industry. Over the last few years, we really felt like we were being unlawfully attacked by the prior administration. And under another fork of history, you know, this industry might not have existed in the United States. It might have been moved entirely offshore. But luckily, the president has taken a leadership role here and decided to bring it back to the U.S. And it's already having positive results. For instance, Coinbase is planning to hire about a thousand people here in the United States as a result of this industry being getting regulatory clarity here in the U.S. And so they announced this strategic Bitcoin reserve last night as well, which I think is an incredible moment. If the United States government is now a holder of Bitcoin, maybe a buyer of Bitcoin in a budget neutral way that won't cost the taxpayer anything, I think the rest of the G20 are going to see that as a signal that Bitcoin is really the successor to the gold standard. And maybe the rest of the G20 should also hold a strategic Bitcoin reserve. Do you think that the creation of the strategic Bitcoin reserve will stabilize Bitcoin, make it less volatile, and that it creates somewhat of a floor underneath the asset? Well, I do think there's a lot of long holders of Bitcoin. So that's already created a floor. But yeah, having the United States government be a holder of Bitcoin, you know, just creates more buying pressure over time. So I do, you know, the goal is not necessarily to become have Bitcoin be have zero volatility. We want the price to go up over time. And, you know, things that are like stable coins, for instance, can be very flat in their pricing power. And so those those are the medium of exchange. But we want Bitcoin to be kind of like a digital gold. So it's OK if it has some volatility with an upward trend over time. The administration obviously working to create more clarity for your industry. Congress also looking to create rules of the road, something I know that you and many others in the industry have been thirsting for. What are you hearing from lawmakers on Capitol Hill as it relates to the market structure bill, either in the Senate or the House? What are your expectations and how quickly that could move? We heard from President Trump this afternoon. He's looking for something before the August recess, he said. Yeah, that was very promising to hear as well, that he's really asked Congress to come back and pass legislation before August or before the August recess. We're incredibly excited about the progress because I think this is the most pro-crypto Congress we've ever seen. They're already working on draft legislation in the House and the Senate around stable coins, which we're very supportive of. That's going to help preserve the dollar's reserve currency status, a digital dollar. And then they're also starting to work on market structure legislation that would help clarify which of these crypto assets or commodities, securities, payment tokens or something else like artwork. And so if they do that, it's going to bring in lots of new pools of capital into the U.S. The biggest crypto companies can finally get built here in the United States. And it would be a huge moment for American prosperity. And before I let you go, Brian, how are you working with the administration? Do you see yourself teaming up in any way with the administration, whether it's the strategic Bitcoin reserve, the digital asset stockpile or otherwise? Yeah, well, first and foremost, we want to just be an educational resource wherever we can be helpful. And we meet with legislators, members of Congress as well to try to give input from the industry where appropriate. But I think over the long term, we just want to help get crypto candidates elected in a bipartisan way. And so organizations like StandWithCrypto.org helped elect a lot of this pro-crypto Congress. They had about two million people in the United States who raised their hand and said they wanted to elect pro-crypto candidates in the last election. We're trying to help that get to about four million in the 2026 midterms. And we're also going to continue to fund Fairshake, the SuperPAC, which had such great results in this last election. So those will be some of our efforts along with getting legislation passed. Brian, thank you so much for your insight as always. Hope to see you soon. Thank you. That's Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase.