Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong wants to build an open financial system.
As part of the company’s roadmap outlined during an open house, Armstrong said his firm would continue to take a leading role in the development and dissemination of blockchain technology to get “100 million or more people to start [using] cryptocurrency.”
Armstrong said:
“We can actually change the law, you know, bend this curve and materially change the economic freedom of the entire world by what we’re going to build … The vision for Coinbase is creating more economic freedom for every person and business in the world over the next ten years.”
To this end, Coinbase will continue to invest in industry startups through its incubator program, Coinbase Ventures. It will also roll out a suite of products aimed at lowering the bar of entry to cryptocurrencies and expand the ways people can earn cryptocurrency.
“Coinbase can’t do it alone, there needs to be thousands of companies out there,” he said.
While his firm has already invested in 50 or 60 startups, he pointed out there are new investment strategies like security tokens and initial exchange offerings that will propel the industry forward.
While the upstarts today will enjoy the benefits of being crypto native, Armstong also pointed out that Coinbase grew to be “the largest custodian out there… by really focusing on compliance” and forging relationships with traditional financial institutions.
He believes it’s this emphasis on financial and cyber security that enabled “people to really trust us.” Ultimately, Armstrong wants to leverage his brand’s image of convenience and safety “to have a billion people in say five to ten years accessing an open financial system through our products every day.”
Armstrong in not the only Bay Area-technologist looking to reshape the global financial system. Though, in his 16 minute speech there was no reference to Facebook’s Libra project.
Brian Armstrong at Consensus 2019 via CoinDesk archives
