The chief executive of COINBASE says that the crypto exchange will receive a boost from new capital coming into the space via Bitcoin () exchange-traded funds.
In a new interview on CNBC Television, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong says that expected BTC ETFs will soon inundate the crypto industry with institutional capital and new users, complementing the top US crypto exchange.
He also notes that most of the ETF applications name Coinbase as the custody provider for the BTC.
“Whenever there’s a new technology that comes out in the scene or a new product, you always have to ask yourself ‘what percentage of this is a substitute for the thing that came before it, and what percentage is a complement?’
Of course, it’s usually never 100% one or the other. I think in this case, it’s mostly a compliment. You could say it’s 80/20 one way or the other, something like that. Our goal with crypto is to get it plugged into all areas of the economy, we want the massive pools of capital out there that are in endowments, institutions, and pension funds.
They should all be able to participate in this new asset class, and so I think mostly it will be a complement. We’ll see large pools of new capital come into crypto, I think that’s part of why we’ve seen Bitcoin’s price be up 90% year-to-date in anticipation of this.”
Armstrong goes on to say that both retail and blue-chip investors will likely want to own more than just BTC ETFs and will flock to crypto exchanges such as Coinbase to be able to access other products.
“There’s also going to be a huge retail and institutional segment – they don’t just want to own an ETF for Bitcoin, they want to own other crypto assets, or they want to earn staking rewards on their assets, or they want to actually participate in the crypto economy [via] stablecoins, commerce, NFTs (non-fungible tokens), and web3.
So those people are going to come to Coinbase and use our product directly as well. So Coinbase has a role to play in all aspects of the value chain.”
