Under the leadership of its CEO, Brian Armstrong, Coinbase, the largest publicly traded cryptocurrency company, is engaged in a relentless and likely very costly fight against various US regulators.
Still, the recent success of the company’s new initiatives is a sign that it still has a lot to contribute to the industry. Indeed, she recently successfully launched her own blockchain, Base, and created Stand With Crypto, a nonprofit aimed at fostering pro-crypto legislation.
In an interview held a few days ago, the CEO of Coinbase reiterated his intention to redefine the future of cryptos. An objective that he wishes to accomplish through three essential points.
The Rise of blockchain through the progression of technology
During a recent Coinbase earnings conference call, CEO Brian Armstrong went into detail about the three things he sees as critical to supporting the industry’s continued growth that will determine the future of cryptocurrencies.
Last year we released a documentary about Coinbase's 10 year journey from idea to public company. Excited it's now available to watch on Youtube worldwide for free.
— Brian Armstrong 🛡️ (@brian_armstrong) August 18, 2023
Hopefully now more people can watch it and be inspired to build something of their own.https://t.co/a6cYh1c2YC
The first of these pillars concerns the scalability of the blockchain. This technical dimension is crucial to meet the growing needs of the crypto community, and Armstrong was particularly optimistic about current scaling solutions.
Specifically, Armstrong discussed Bitcoin’s Lightning Network and the Ethereum scaling solution developed by his own company. This focus on scalability is unsurprising, especially given the vital importance of ensuring that blockchains can efficiently handle an ever-increasing number of transactions.
Coinbase, as an industry leader, is aware of the challenges posed by mass adoption, and it is actively working to find solutions to ensure the long-term viability of blockchains.
Use cases for crypto
The second point to shape according to Coinbase the future of cryptocurrencies, which is closely related to the first, is the utility of cryptos. It is about exploring the non-financial use cases of blockchain, going beyond simple financial transactions.
According to Armstrong, Coinbase has played a significant role in raising public awareness and creating the trust needed to expand the use of cryptos to areas such as smart contracts, application decentralization, and more.
This move by Coinbase is all the more crucial given that blockchains have long been a seesaw, where increased users lead to high transaction fees, discouraging wide-scale adoption.
In order to enable a global, open, onchain economy, we believe that Base must be decentralized
— Base 🛡️ (@BuildOnBase) August 24, 2023
To prioritize this, we've built Base on the OP Stack in collaboration with @optimismFND
Today, we're sharing an update on our commitmenthttps://t.co/OqxVuIHIjm
However, new layer 2 (L2) solutions such as Arbiutrum and Optimism for Ethereum, mentioned by Armstrong, are showing signs of notable adoption in recent months.
The need to cover the regulatory basics of the crypto industry
Finally, according to Coinbase, the future of cryptocurrencies is beyond the technological aspects and use cases, the third crucial pillar according to Brian Armstrong is regulation, a major obstacle to the continued rise of crypto.
The CEO of Coinbase has clearly identified that technological problems tend to find technical solutions, but regulation presents a different challenge. During the call made with his team, he made reference to Stand With Crypto, an organization sponsored by Coinbase.
Stand With Crypto, like other lobby groups in the blockchain space, is on a mission to influence the direction of US crypto laws. This initiative is of paramount importance for two main reasons.
First, two bills currently under discussion could potentially reshape the crypto industry, including the Crypto Market Structure Bill (known as FIT21) and the Stablecoin Bill. These proposals, supported by representatives of the two main American parties, are currently being examined in the Senate.
Second, a growing number of industry players view existing lobbying efforts in Washington as failing to adequately advance the sector.