Coinbase CEO: crypto is the financial infrastructure for AI agents

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has responded to the idea that people in the crypto world should shift to AI. In his view, that is precisely the wrong way of thinking. Crypto and AI are not competitors; they complement each other. Armstrong sees a big future for what he calls ‘Agentic Finance’: a world in which AI agents carry out financial transactions independently via crypto.

Crypto as infrastructure, like electricity and the internet

Armstrong explains that crypto is a general-purpose technology, comparable to electricity or the internet. It is infrastructure that enables other technologies, not something that competes with them. “It’s an ‘and’, not an ‘or’,” he writes. In his view, the rise of AI as a megatrend actually makes crypto more relevant, not less.

The reasoning is simple: AI agents will soon need their own financial infrastructure. They cannot open a bank account, they cannot wait three days for a transfer, and they are not tied to any one country. What they need is real-time programmable money, and that is exactly what crypto provides.

AI agents will surpass humans in transaction volume

Armstrong expects that, in time, AI agents will carry out more transactions per day than all humans on Earth combined. They must be able to hold money independently, make payments, trade and act as financial advisers. In addition, they can raise or borrow money for projects they carry out themselves, and take over tasks such as tax planning and portfolio rebalancing.

Coinbase is already responding to this through the x402 protocol, the Base network and USDC. According to Armstrong, these three together already form the basis for the vast majority of all payments made by AI agents. He calls this new domain ‘AiFi’, or Agentic Finance, and says this is what Coinbase is now building.