Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the artificial intelligence (AI) megatrend makes crypto more important, not less.
He argued that AI agents will become the largest transacting users of crypto rails.
How Could AI Make Crypto More Important?
In a post on X, Armstrong rejected the advice that people in crypto should pivot to AI. Armstrong called that framing zero-sum scarcity thinking.
The post arrives during a punishing year for digital assets. Bitcoin (BTC) has fallen more than 25% in 2026. US spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded $4.5 billion of outflows in June. The drawdown has also weighed on crypto-linked stocks and platform activity.
AI-linked equities have moved in the opposite direction. The S&P 500 has gained roughly 9% this year, and AI names account for almost all of that advance.
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However, Armstrong disputed the competition concerns. He compared crypto to electricity and the internet. Both work as a base infrastructure that later technologies run on top of, he argued.
“AI being a megatrend takes nothing away from crypto. If anything, it makes crypto more important,” he wrote.
Armstrong argued that autonomous software cannot operate inside traditional finance. Agents cannot open bank accounts or wait 3 days for a wire.
Therefore, he said, they need programmable money in real time, and he pointed to crypto rails. Franklin Templeton made a similar case days earlier. Sandy Kaul, its head of digital assets, called agentic AI the killer use case driving blockchain adoption.
CZ made a similar forecast in January. The Binance founder told a World Economic Forum panel in Davos that agents would settle in crypto.
The sector’s most prominent voices have landed on the same thesis this year. Whether the usage figures will catch up will be a key trend to watch.
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