'Working on It': Coinbase CEO Eyes Crypto in Hands of Billion People

In a recent tweet, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong highlighted the ultimate goal of crypto being in the hands of 1 billion people.

Armstrong had engaged with a tweet from an X user, which stated that crypto truly wins when it is in the hands of a billion people. This, according to him, means fully abstracted experience and one app replacing all financial apps.

The Coinbase CEO responded, saying that it was being worked on. In the past, the Coinbase CEO had revealed the aim to make Coinbase “the No. 1 financial services app in the world” in the next few years.

This week, Coinbase received conditional approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, or OCC, to operate as a trust bank, the company said Thursday.

If finalized, the crypto exchange will be able to operate payment products in addition to its custody business under federal supervision.

Coinbase already acts as a custodian for most U.S.-listed spot crypto exchange-traded funds and for asset managers entering the sector, placing it in an important position in facilitating institutional access to crypto assets.

Coinbase expands payment push

Last year, the crypto exchange launched Coinbase Payments, a product for platforms and merchants that includes wallet integrations and stablecoin checkout. It also launched a payments protocol with Shopify built on the Base blockchain. Separately, it collaborated with Shopify and Stripe to allow their merchant partners to accept USDC.

This week, Coinbase announced it has joined with the Linux Foundation to launch the x402 Foundation, an industry group created to oversee the development of a new internet payments standard.

The foundation will steward the x402 protocol, which allows websites to request and receive payments as part of normal web traffic, after Coinbase contributed the technology to the Linux Foundation.