Coinbase CEO Slams Crypto Startups Abandoning Crypto for AI

Brian Armstrong says startups shouldn’t abandon crypto for AI as autonomous software will need money it can spend without a bank account.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong criticized startups abandoning crypto to chase the artificial-intelligence boom, arguing that AI will make crypto infrastructure more useful rather than replace it.

Armstrong said in an X post that the advice for crypto companies to pivot to AI reflected “zero sum, scarcity thinking” and misunderstood how the two technologies could develop together.

As the Coinbase CEO argued, crypto should be viewed as a “general purpose technology,” similar to electricity or the internet, rather than as a technology competing directly with AI.