Coinbase Targeting Stablecoin Growth, Onchain Adoption in 2026: Brian Armstrong
The exchange beat financial expectations in Q3 of last year, and it’s aiming to grow its stablecoin and payments businesses in 2026.
In brief
- Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has said that the exchange is aiming to scale up its offerings in stablecoins and payments in 2026.
- Armstrong also declared that Coinbase is aiming to become the biggest financial app in the world, and that it wants to expand blockchain adoption globally.
- Industry commentators suggest that such aims may be unrealistic within a single year, but that Coinbase has a key role to play in onboarding newcomers to crypto.
Crypto exchange Coinbase is aiming to scale up its stablecoin offerings and increase onchain adoption worldwide in 2026, according to CEO and founder Brian Armstrong.
In New Year’s Day tweet, Armstrong declared that the company’s overarching aim is to make Coinbase “the #1 financial app in the world.”
Here are our top priorities for 2026 at Coinbase:
Grow the everything exchange globally (crypto, equities, prediction markets, commodities - across spot, futures, and options)
Scale stablecoins and payments
Bring the world onchain through @CoinbaseDev, @base chain,…
— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) January 1, 2026
The post unpacked how Coinbase aims to move closer to this goal in 2026, with the company focusing on scaling stablecoins and payments, while also expanding its presence globally in crypto, equities, prediction markets and commodities.
Armstrong also affirmed that the exchange will be making “major investments” in automation and product quality, and that it will harness its Ethereum layer-2 network Base and Base App to “bring the world onchain.”
The post follows a similar New Year’s Eve update from David Duong, Coinbase’s Global Head of Investment Research, who argued that regulatory clarity and institutional adoption “are converging to make crypto part of the financial core.”
Duong also highlighted the role of spot crypto ETFs, stablecoins and tokenization in driving growth and adoption, suggesting that these factors will combine in 2026 “as ETF approval timelines compress, stablecoins take a larger role in delivery-vs-payment (DvP) structures, and tokenized collateral is recognized more broadly across traditional transactions.”