Bitcoin (BTC) Could Become the World's Reserve Currency, Says Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong

Here with Brian Armstrong at the Coinbase Summit, Brian, good to see you here. You dropped some new products, but there was something you said on

Here with Brian Armstrong at the Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) Summit, Brian, good to see you here. You dropped some new products, but there was something you said on stage that caught my attention. You said that Bitcoin could become the world’s reserve currency because of the US debt situation, which is ballooning. Now, how realistic is that?

Well, it really is unclear at this point, but one thing that is clear is that democracies around the world are having trouble getting deficit spending under control. And you know, that can only, if you study history, right, the changing world order, different empires, like who had the reserve currency different moments in time, once you decouple currency from hard commodities, the inevitable story is they get overprinted and extend, right? And so I think right now, I, to be clear, you know, I want the US to maintain the reserve currency status. I think a strong America is very important for the world, and I think cryptocurrency is helping the dollar enormously with things like USDC and stable coins. But if the debt situation doesn't get fixed, I do think that eventually Bitcoin will have to become the reserve currency, for better or worse. It's not going to be the Chinese RMB because I think they have their own debt problems, and it's not a coincidence that as we're seeing all-time highs in US debt, we're seeing all-time highs in Bitcoin.

We had a great chart in there too in your presentation, but what is the, what's the tipping point for that to happen. When debt hits a certain level, suddenly we have to worry about the world reserve currency being the US dollar?

Yeah, I mean there's not usually, it's like one of these things like the frog is slowly cooked and you know, I think if you look at other countries in the past, it was maybe around 150% or 200% debt to GDP, things started to get a little wonky. And so we'll have to see what happens. I hope that the Congress, which is doing an amazing job by the way and on passing legislation in a bipartisan way for crypto, and this administration, the Trump administration, has been an incredible tailwind for crypto. They've done an incredible job. So, you know, I think there's a lot to be grateful for, but if I hope that, you know, the US government can get the spending under control to preserve this American experiment.

Do you agree with with Elon that this tax bill that might pass, that could be the triggering point, that's the triggering point for potential economic crisis?

You know, I'm not, so I'm reading both sides on this and I don't, I don't know enough to say for sure to be honest with you, you're a little, you're asking questions a little above my pay grade, but I think, you know, this bill, it doesn't have the full ability to touch on discretionary spending, there may need to be a follow-on bill to that. I hope that they're working on that and make the best they can of this bill, maybe there needs to be separate legislation to to cut spending elsewhere, I don't know.

What would a, what would a Bitcoin reserve currency mean to a company like Coinbase?

Well, it would certainly mean increased adoption of Bitcoin, right? I think that our goal is to power more and more of people's financial lives with Coinbase products and we started in trading, now we're moving into all kinds of financial services like payments and borrowing and lending. And eventually, I think crypto and Coinbase can be a replacement for people's bank account, right? I think that more and more of their financial life will happen on chain with Coinbase, and it'll being bring new benefits and services to customers. Like why shouldn't you earn four and a half percent on your checking account, or why can't you send money instantly any where in the world for free, or, you know, if you if you live in Turkey or Nigeria, why can't you trade US equities 24/7 with perpetual futures, right?

It's logical, right?

Yeah, I mean there, there's, sometimes there's artificial barriers and middlemen taking fees and like that's what crypto is all about, it's about updating the financial system, bringing freedom and individual sovereignty to people all over the world.

I was reading some research on crypto from the JP Morgan team and they said the retail investor is looking for the next catalyst in Bitcoin. It made sense because it's been a pretty big year, we've had the Bitcoin (BTC/USD) reserve, we have companies like yours putting out new products. But is the next catalyst