Brian Armstrong, Coinbase’s chief executive, published an eight-point list of upgrades he says global finance still needs. He pointed to tokenized assets, stablecoins, artificial intelligence, and sound money. He framed the changes as work for builders and policymakers. The post arrived as tokenized real-world assets crossed $34.9 billion in May 2026, according to RWA.xyz, up about 200% over the past year.
Armstrong called for putting real estate, stocks, bonds, and funds on-chain. He said the move could bring instant settlement, fractional ownership, and wider access for global investors. He also pushed for continuous global markets with pooled liquidity. He said 24/7 trading could improve capital efficiency and expand access to leveraged products.
The tokenized asset market already shows strong growth. RWA.xyz placed the sector at $34.9 billion in May 2026. That figure marked roughly 200% growth over the prior 12 months.
Armstrong also backed stablecoin payments, including transfers between autonomous AI agents. Coinbase already runs x402, a stablecoin payment protocol that processed more than 75.4 million transactions in the past 30 days.
Related coverage said x402 became native to Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, which lets AI agents pay for services in USDC without human input. That report said transactions settle on Base in about 200 milliseconds.
Another report said Coinbase launched Agentic.market, a marketplace where AI agents can find and buy services with USDC through x402. At launch, the system had settled about 165 million transactions across more than 480,000 agents.
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Armstrong also said AI could sharpen credit decisions, fraud detection, and other financial tasks. He wrote that 'AI-powered risk, credit, compliance, and advice' could bring better decisions, less fraud, and broader access to capital. He also urged risk-based regulation instead of blanket rules. Alongside that view, he listed sound money, self-custody, and lower-cost capital formation as remaining priorities.
Armstrong later said Coinbase used AI to speed up compliance work. He said the company rebuilt 'essentially every workflow' in its compliance division with AI in core operations. He said the changes cut account restriction resolution times by about 90%. He added that humans still validate every outcome. According to him, AI now handles most repetitive compliance work while human staff continues final review.
The wider industry is moving in a similar direction. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said workers face more pressure from people who use AI than from AI itself. He said AI already supports Nvidia workflows and boosts productivity. Infosys also partnered with Harness to automate software delivery with AI. Infosys CEO Salil Parekh said the goal was to help enterprises scale AI safely and efficiently.
Accenture CEO Julie Sweet said AI proficiency now matters for promotions at Accenture. She said workers must show AI competence to advance.
Brian Armstrong said global finance still needs major updates, from tokenized assets and stablecoins to AI-driven compliance and sound money. He linked these changes to faster payments, broader access, and better capital use. The key question now is how quickly finance will move on-chain.