Have you ever gone on the internet and stumbled onto this combo of words, or perhaps non-words?: “Dogecoin.” “Shiba Inu.” “Hawkcoin.” “Bored Ape NFT.” If that sounded like gibberish, don’t worry—we’ll explain. And also, time to start learning, because these terms come out of a new financial ecosystem—the world of crypto, a market that started 15 years ago and is now worth about $3.3 trillion. This new world has caught the attention of none other than President Donald Trump. Since coming to office, Trump has appointed a crypto czar and floated the idea of a national crypto stockpile. And shortly Trump took office, he launched his own meme coin—as did Melania. Trump’s coin has reportedly generated $100 million in trading fees so far. And to top it all off, Trump is taking calls from the biggest names in the business. One of whom is our guest today—Brian Armstrong. Brian is a 42-year-old San Jose native who changed the nature of commerce not only in America but all over the world. He co-founded a cryptocurrency platform called Coinbase in 2012. Now, it’s the largest crypto exchange in the US. To some, he’s doing something as revolutionary as building rocket ships to Mars. To others, he’s growing an industry riddled with scammers, grifters, and criminals. Armstrong says those stories are the sideshow and that Bitcoin—or perhaps another cryptocurrency—will prove itself to be as essential as the dollar. Today on Honestly, Bari asks Brian why he thinks crypto is the way of the future, how he navigates eager regulators, why he’s been so politically active, how MAGA’s "America First" ethos gets along with the borderless, decentralized crypto zeitgeist, and if crypto is really as dangerous as some make it out to be. We also talk about the DOGE, his recent meeting with Trump, and how he once stuck his neck out against the far-left mob. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Get $10 for free when you trade $100+ with code HONESTLY: www.Kalshi.com/Honestly Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, and other crypto terms?
From the free press, this is Honestly, and I'm Barry Weiss. Have you ever gone on the internet and stumbled onto combos of words or perhaps non-words? I'm talking Dogecoin, the Shibu Inu one, Hawkcoin, or Bored Ape NFT. If those things sound like gibberish, don't worry, we're going to explain.
And also, it's time to start learning them, because they exist in a new financial ecosystem, the world of crypto, a market that started just 15 years ago and is now worth more than $3 trillion. This new world has caught the attention of a lot of people, including President Donald Trump.
This is all common sense that we're talking about today, and Bitcoin and crypto will skyrocket like never before, even beyond your expectations, and you are the people that are doing it.
Since coming to office, Trump has appointed a crypto czar, floated the idea of a national crypto stockpile, and launched his own meme coin, as did first lady Melania.
President Donald Trump's latest venture into crypto has sparked both controversy and a financial windfall.
They reportedly made $100 million in just trading fees so far. To top it off, he's taking calls from the biggest names in the business, one of which is our guest today, Brian Armstrong. Brian is a 42-year-old San Jose native who changed the nature of commerce, not only in America, but all over the world. That's because he founded the cryptocurrency platform Coinbase in 2012.
It's now the largest crypto exchange in the world. To some, he's doing something as revolutionary as building rocket ships that go to Mars by bringing us into a new digital and financial age. To skeptics, he's growing an industry riddled with scammers, grifters, and even criminals.
Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted of orchestrating what prosecutors are calling one of the largest financial frauds in history.
This was something that we had never seen before. This was Attorney General Merrick Garland and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen appearing side by side to announce criminal charges and a plea deal with Binance and its CEO, Chen Pengzao, known as CZ.
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Chapter 2: How has Trump influenced the crypto market?
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Go to shopify.com slash honestly, all lowercase, to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com slash honestly. Brian Armstrong, welcome to Honestly.
Thanks for having me.
I'm really happy you're here. So Doge has uncovered a lot of insane things over the past three weeks. It's felt like more like three years since Trump came to office. But, you know, there's been like trans operas in Siberia and DEI initiatives in Kazakhstan.
But I don't think there's anything that's going to stick with me more than this image of a limestone mine in Pennsylvania where 230 feet under the ground in a cave – 700 workers process federal employee retirements using paper by hand, which are then stored in manila envelopes and cardboard boxes.
And there is this incredible Washington Post article from 10 years ago about how it's basically a limestone cave version of the office and how all these people hate each other. Thank you so much for having me.
And then this other world, which is the world of the private sector, most notably the private sector in Silicon Valley, that is Lightspeed AI, crypto, blockchain, blood boys, rockets into outer space, the future, right? And these are the two largest employers in America. And now they have met inside this new MAGA Trump coalition in Washington. And I wanted to start by asking you,
if you think this merger marriage is working, and what you think of this sort of strange split-screen reality coming into one frame.
Yeah, well, I'm incredibly excited about Doge. I mean, my whole personal philosophy is I'm pro-freedom. That's economic freedom, which is the mission of Coinbase, but freedom of speech, you know, up and down the board, I'm pro-freedom. I think that's what creates civilizational progress. And so... One big way you can get economic freedom is by having a smaller, more efficient government.
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Chapter 3: Why does Brian Armstrong believe in the future of crypto?
And if we had just kind of closed our eyes, pretended that wasn't happening as a technology shift, the big internet companies wouldn't have been built in the United States. technology is the fastest growing, most important sector in the United States economy today, we would not be the world's superpower, right? So we can't afford to ignore crypto.
It is just as important as the internet or AI or any of these things. Now, the last kind of nuance I'll say on this is I actually think Bitcoin, you know, by the way, today, it hasn't really been an issue on sanctions and these kinds of things. Like, you know, people are seven times more likely, bad actors are seven times more likely to use the traditional banking system than they are crypto.
You know, the fears about crypto being used by bad actors is actually widely overblown and misreported. But in the, you know, you could imagine some hypothetical scenario in the future where, people try to get around these sanctions in some way that undermines the US's ability to do that.
I still think that it would be better for America to have embraced crypto because it's the economic argument I mentioned, but it's also that Bitcoin is going to be a check and balance on deficit spending and inflation for the dollar. We went off the gold standard fully in around 1970 or 71. I can't remember which. And At that point, we've had larger deficits. We've had a lack of discipline.
And a lot of people have written about this, but every fiat currency that got disconnected from hard commodities eventually overprinted and kind of lost the reserve currency status. And so Bitcoin, in a way, might be extending the American experiment another couple hundred years by being that check and balance on deficit spending so the dollar can actually remain the reserve currency.
So it's like we're not going to go back to tethering to gold, but actually in the future, five years from now, you wouldn't be surprised if we were tethering the dollar to Bitcoin?
I don't know if we'll ever see like a re-pegging of the dollar to a hard commodity. If they did it, Bitcoin would be the right choice. I think it's more likely we'll get a Bitcoin strategic reserve, things like that, that are a step in that direction. But it's more likely people will just, if in times of dollar uncertainty, like let's say Doge, does an amazing job.
But in five or 10 years, we see a return back to deficit spending and inflation. We'd see people move money as a hedge back to Bitcoin, and it would sort of create a natural check and balance there.
One of the things that makes ordinary Americans skeptical of crypto is how volatile it is, right? I think it was in 2022, crypto lost $2 trillion of its $3 trillion in market capitalization. You'll correct me if I'm wrong. And I think if like the dollar had gone through something like that, we would all be like, stay away from the dollar. How do you, you know, but crypto obviously is siloed.
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