Coinbase CEO Says Stablecoin Payments Will Be a Key Growth Driver

Coinbase, the U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, said its stablecoin business will be a major growth driver in the years ahead.

Brian Armstrong, Coinbase’s chief executive officer, told Bloomberg in an interview on Sept. 10 that stablecoin payments would grow into a very large industry and could become an attractive business opportunity for the company.

Stablecoins allow money to move faster and at lower cost than traditional financial networks, driving a rapid increase in use cases such as cross-border remittances and treasury management. Armstrong said the stablecoin market, now worth $300 billion, could grow nearly tenfold by 2030.

Stablecoin-related revenue accounted for about 24% of Coinbase’s second-quarter revenue, Bloomberg reported. That was up slightly from 22% in the previous quarter.

Coinbase returns a large share of the interest and rewards generated by stablecoins to customers, Armstrong said. To expand profitability, the company needs to increase actual payment volume, he added.

He also addressed U.S. cryptocurrency regulation. Even if the crypto market structure bill known as the Clarity Act does not pass the Senate, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission could still provide the rules the industry needs, he said. He added that there could be progress through Congress or regulators within the next one to two weeks.