Coinbase CEO Exposes Big Bank Plot to Crush Crypto Competition

While most CEOs stay quiet to keep Washington happy, Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong is pulling no punches.

In a revealing interview on Mornings with Maria, Armstrong sounded the alarm on a dangerous trend in D.C.: big banks using regulation to kill off their competition in the crypto space. Coinbase, once supportive of a key Senate crypto bill, is now backing away and Armstrong is making it clear why.

“It just felt deeply unfair to me that one industry [banks] would come in and get to do regulatory capture to ban their competition,” Armstrong told Maria Bartiromo on FOX Business.

This isn’t just about crypto it’s about government picking winners and losers, and once again, it’s the American people who lose when entrenched financial giants call the shots.

Here’s what’s really going on:

• Major banks are lobbying Congress to rig the rules, especially around stablecoins, to ensure they stay on top while upstart crypto firms get buried under red tape.

• One provision in the proposed bill would block stablecoin holders from receiving reward payments, essentially eliminating one of the most attractive features of crypto-based finance.

• Meanwhile, the banking sector reaps billions annually in overdraft fees and near-zero interest on savings accounts, while blocking more efficient, decentralized alternatives.

Armstrong didn't shy away from pointing fingers at where this influence is coming from D.C. lobbyists acting on behalf of the same banks that claim to be working with crypto behind the scenes.

“Their lobbying arm comes to D.C. and thinks of it as very zero-sum and is trying to kill the competition,” Armstrong explained.

And he’s not wrong. According to OpenSecrets, commercial banks spent over $64 million on lobbying in 2023, and the crypto sector which champions transparency and decentralization remains vastly outgunned in political influence.

Still, Armstrong holds out hope that lawmakers with common sense will recognize the harm in letting big banks dictate policy. He urged Capitol Hill to bring real stakeholders into the room and find a fair path forward one where innovation isn’t suffocated by lobbyists looking to preserve their monopoly.

Make no mistake: this is the kind of crony capitalism that conservatives and libertarians have warned about for years where the private sector isn’t competing in the marketplace, but instead buying advantages from regulators.

Crypto is far from perfect, but it represents a legitimate challenge to the broken banking system that has failed middle America for decades. And now, the elites are trying to shut it down before it can fully take root.

Good on Armstrong for speaking out. It’s time more leaders had the courage to do the same.

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