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The Almighty Buck

Wall Street's Top Bankers Are Giving Coinbase's Brian Armstrong the Cold Shoulder (msn.com) 21

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon interrupted a conversation between Coinbase chief Brian Armstrong and former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair at Davos last week to tell Armstrong "You are full of s---," his index finger pointed squarely at Armstrong's face. Dimon told Armstrong to stop lying on TV, according to WSJ.

Armstrong had appeared on business programs earlier that week accusing banks of trying to sabotage the Clarity Act, legislation that would create a new regulatory framework for digital assets. He also accused banks of lending out customers' deposits "without their permission essentially."

The fight centers on stablecoin "rewards" -- regular payouts, say 3.5%, that exchanges like Coinbase offer for holding digital tokens. Banks typically offer under 0.1% on checking accounts and worry consumers will shift their money in droves to crypto. Other bank CEOs were similarly cold at Davos. Bank of America's Brian Moynihan gave Armstrong a 30-minute meeting and told him "If you want to be a bank, just be a bank." Citigroup's Jane Fraser offered less than a minute. Wells Fargo's Charlie Scharf said there was nothing for them to talk about. Armstrong had pulled support from a draft of the Clarity Act on January 14, posting on X that Coinbase would "rather have no bill than a bad bill."
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Wall Street's Top Bankers Are Giving Coinbase's Brian Armstrong the Cold Shoulder

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  • Anyone attending Davos should be flogged.

    Yes. Them too.

  • by FeelGood314 ( 2516288 ) on Friday January 30, 2026 @06:02PM (#65959930)
    On the one hand, all crypto currencies are a scam (even the ones I contributed to)
    On the other is banks lending out my money and paying me almost nothing

    On the third hand is the stock brokerage firms lending out my game stop shares, paying me exactly zero interest and not letting me take my shares out.

    I might actually have to side with the open scam.
    • Robinhood is not a stock brokerage firm. Your mistake was in giving them money in the first place no need in even talking about how bad buying GME was.

    • by cusco ( 717999 )

      The banksters are beginning to worry about their money laundering revenue. Until recently crypto was a drop in the bucket, there was no possible way that it could make serious inroads into the multiple TRILLIONS of dollars they process every year (a minimum of three and possibly as much as six or seven), they're the principle conduit for money laundering (other major routes include Wall Street, real estate, and the insurance cartels). With an average charge of 10-15% for their "private banking" services t

    • What I saw the past couple of weeks is btc has fallen while gold/silver rose as the dollar was getting questioned. Last I checked I think it was 85. Down from 100 a short while ago. Perhaps people are beginning to realize it is not money or an asset. AI is the new hot topic so I expect crypto will do a slow fade to stage right.
    • You can opt out of lending your shares at most brokerages.

      Many banks and credit unions will pay you more than 0.01%. It is the choice of Chase and other large banks to give you nothing in return. You can already get >3% in many FDIC insured accounts. While there are maximums to the insurance amount, you can get around them by using multiple banks, or CDARS. No need to buy crapto.

      • Wait - do the legit brokerages sell the same share multiple time? Is that a legit thing? This is news to me.
        • Share lending is legal and available at major brokerages. It is a complex subject. I suggest you research it. In a cash account, you are supposed to get some interest if you allow your shares to be borrowed. But there are risks, including effect on SIPC insurance, taxation of the made-up dividends, cash collateral risk.

    • Wait, do the legit trading houses do that? Or are you referring to Robinhood? If you are, you need to realize that they too are a known scam - a gamified gambling site disguised as a stock trading firm.
    • Just a quick comment to this:

      On the other is banks lending out my money and paying me almost nothing

      You may or may not know that banks don't make money by loaning your money to others, but rather they use your money as a basis to create 10x as much in loans to others. Which is at the same time how money is created and why there's the obligatory crash every decade or so, since all the money exists to pay off all the debt, but then there's no money to pay for the interest fees on all those loans, ....

  • Brian is right.
  • by PubJeezy ( 10299395 ) on Saturday January 31, 2026 @12:07AM (#65960402)
    Duh. His products have no viable use-case. Coinbase was a money laundering platform that has been publicly cooperating with the feds against their own customers. Coinbase, and crypto in general, was a regulatory arbitrage and those are always meant to be temporary. Once regulations make the arb impossible, the platform and the losers running immediately cease to have any value.
  • by electroniceric ( 468976 ) on Saturday January 31, 2026 @12:32PM (#65960976)

    Crypto is free-riding on the banking system.

    Banks do an awful lot more than just put money in accounts and move it around. They are responsible for finding fraud, mediating disputes over claimed funds, collaborating with law enforcement to prevent illegal activities, as well as engaging in well-understood and sound lending and risk management practices. They also provide separation between financial activities like storing money, lending, and investing. These are all critical functions to ensure that regular people can count on stable and safe vehicles for storing and using their money. The banks' failure in these functions in the 1920s was a major cause of the Great Depression, and the reason that we brought the industry into the trade of government guarantees in exchange for regulations ensuring stability and soundness.

    Do they succeed at all of these all of the time, or even as much as they should? Doubtless they do not.

    But crypto provides none of these functions, and in fact leverages them. When people want real money from the real financial system, they get it out of crypto and leverage all that the banking system provides. Crypto wants to free-ride on the whole system, and offer the investment and profit upsides without the financial system responsibilities. Pure leechery.

    "Just be a bank" is 100% correct.

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