In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen Coinbase CEO: The Future of Crypto, Machine-to-Machine Payments and the Quest to Live Forever
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Mar 18, 2026 
Brian Armstrong, co-founder and CEO of Coinbase, a leading U.S. crypto exchange and infrastructure builder. He discusses stablecoins' potential to scale massively. He explores AI agents already transacting on-chain and machine-to-machine payments. He covers regulatory battles, tokenization of assets, and why longevity science and AI could extend human life.
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Crypto Has Become A Broad Financial Infrastructure
- Crypto evolved from Bitcoin's 'digital gold' to a platform updating payments, lending, capital formation and tokenization across asset classes.
- Brian Armstrong cites regulatory clarity and adoption by institutions like BlackRock and Visa as key drivers of trust and growth.
Airbnb Experience Exposed Broken Cross Border Payments
- Brian's Airbnb experience showed global payments were slow and costly, motivating him to rethink cross-border money movement.
- He recounts payouts costing 7–10% and taking 3–5 business days to countries like Uruguay, highlighting real user pain.
Stablecoins Check All Three Payment Boxes
- Stablecoins offer a payment rail that is simultaneously fast, cheap and global, unlike cards or SWIFT.
- Armstrong predicts digital dollars could grow 100x–1000x because they settle instantly for cents worldwide.