In a recent tweet, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong emphasized the ultimate goal of putting cryptocurrencies in the hands of 1 billion people.
Armstrong agreed with a tweet by user According to him, this means a completely abstracted experience and replacing all financial apps with one app.
Coinbase’s CEO responded and said they are currently working on it. Coinbase’s CEO has previously stated his goal is to make Coinbase the “world’s No. 1 financial services app” over the next few years.
Working with @baseapp https://t.co/vRdoYqP1TS
— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) April 4, 2026
This week, Coinbase received conditional approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to operate as a trust bank, the company announced Thursday.
If passed, virtual currency exchanges would be able to operate payment products in addition to custody services under federal government supervision.
Coinbase already serves as the custodian for most U.S.-listed spot crypto exchange-traded funds and asset managers entering the sector, giving it a key position in facilitating institutional access to crypto assets.
Coinbase expands payments push
Last year, the cryptocurrency exchange launched Coinbase Payments, a platform and merchant product that includes wallet integration and stablecoin checkout. We also launched a payments protocol with Shopify built on the Base blockchain. Separately, we worked with Shopify and Stripe to enable their merchant partners to accept USDC.
This week, Coinbase announced that it has partnered with the Linux Foundation to launch the x402 Foundation, an industry association created to oversee the development of new internet payment standards.
Coinbase provided the technology to the Linux Foundation, which then manages the x402 protocol that allows websites to request and receive payments as part of regular web traffic.
