Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is Still Bullish on Memecoins

It’s become trendy since Argentina’s Libra debacle to predict the end of what Galaxy Research just called “a souring memecoin narrative.”

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has a different perspective. He said, “new technologies often look like a toy but evolve into something much more powerful over time. So we should be open minded about where memecoins are going, even if some are silly, offensive, or even fraudulent today,” Armstrong said in an X post on Feb. 19.

Calling memecoins “a canary in the coal mine,” he predicted, “everything will be tokenized and brought onchain (every post, image, video, song, asset class, user identity, vote, artwork, stablecoin, contract etc).”

While admitting that he doesn’t trade in memecoins himself, Armstrong said Coinbase would continue to list memecoins, pulling any scammy or fraudulent ones but otherwise letting customers decide if something is of low or high quality.

"Gone Too Far"

Without naming names, he said some memecoins have gone too far. He noted that insider trading is illegal “and people should understand you will go to prison for this.”

Saying Coinbase wants to help bring the next billion people onchain, Armstrong added, “the only way to do this is to build products and services which people want. Help them earn a living, avoid high fees when sending money to friends and family, find truth about what's happening in the world, or get a loan to grow their business.”

He said memecoins have a role to play in this, predicting they “will evolve to help artists get paid, track trends, or who knows what—it's too early to say, but we should keep exploring.”

Artists Evolve

That is already happening. Look no further than the news that FWOG memecoin creator Groowut just turned the art-focused, Solana-based memecoin community he built into a job as creative art lead for Yuga Labs, the NFT powerhouse behind Cryptopunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club.

FWOG has a market capitalization of $67 million. That’s down substantially from its November high of nearly $700 million.

“As for our lil fwog and the FWOG IP, the road ahead is full of potential,” he said. “Can’t wait to lean on and learn from the creative masterminds in the space.”