Coinbase CEO’s Top 3 Crypto Trends for 2026 + More from Davos!

Summary

Jason Calacanis hosts three CEO interviews from Davos, starting with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong discussing the three major crypto trends he sees accelerating in 2026: institutional adoption of stablecoins, Layer 2 scaling solutions reaching mainstream usability, and on-chain identity/verification enabling new financial services. Armstrong reveals that five of the top 20 global banks are now using Coinbase to build crypto infrastructure, and predicts that stablecoins will handle trillions in annual transaction volume as they become the default payment rails for internet commerce.

Cerebras CEO Andrew Feldman explains how his company’s wafer-scale processors are revolutionizing AI training by offering 100x faster training times than traditional GPU clusters. He argues that time-to-insight is more valuable than cost-per-FLOP, and that being able to train a model in days rather than months creates massive strategic advantage. The discussion covers the physics limits of Moore’s Law and why specialized AI chips are the future.

Gecko Robotics CEO Jake Loosararian demonstrates how AI-powered robots are transforming industrial infrastructure inspection, finding critical failures in power plants, ships, and pipelines that human inspectors miss. He shares stories of preventing catastrophic failures that could have killed workers or caused environmental disasters, making the case that AI + physical robots represent the next frontier after digital AI agents.

Highlights

”Five of Top 20 Global Banks Now Using Coinbase”

yt-dlp --download-sections "*7:00-8:00" "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yrLEKjMyrM" --force-keyframes-at-cuts --merge-output-format mp4 -o "-yrLEKjMyrM-7m00s.mp4"

“Five of the top 20 global banks in the world are now using Coinbase to build their crypto infrastructure. A couple are public - JP Morgan, PNC Bank. This is the institutional adoption wave. Banks are realizing crypto is infrastructure for the internet economy.” — Brian Armstrong, 7:00

”Stablecoins Will Be the Payment Rails of Internet Commerce”

yt-dlp --download-sections "*18:00-19:00" "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yrLEKjMyrM" --force-keyframes-at-cuts --merge-output-format mp4 -o "-yrLEKjMyrM-18m00s.mp4"

“Stablecoins are going to be how money moves on the internet. Not Bitcoin, not Ethereum - stablecoins backed by dollars. Instant settlement, programmable, low cost. Every internet company will build on this infrastructure. We’re talking trillions in annual volume.” — Brian Armstrong, 18:00

”Cerebras Trains Models 100x Faster Than GPU Clusters”

yt-dlp --download-sections "*45:31-46:31" "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yrLEKjMyrM" --force-keyframes-at-cuts --merge-output-format mp4 -o "-yrLEKjMyrM-45m31s.mp4"

“Time is the scarce resource in AI, not compute. If I can train your model in 3 days instead of 3 months, that’s transformative. You can iterate faster, respond to competitors faster, deploy features faster. We’re 100x faster than traditional GPU clusters for training.” — Andrew Feldman, 45:31

”Our Robots Found Cracks That Would Have Killed Workers”

yt-dlp --download-sections "*83:50-84:50" "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yrLEKjMyrM" --force-keyframes-at-cuts --merge-output-format mp4 -o "-yrLEKjMyrM-83m50s.mp4"

“We deployed our robots at a power plant and found stress cracks in a boiler that human inspectors had missed for years. If that boiler had failed during operation, it would have killed workers and potentially caused a catastrophic explosion. AI + robotics saves lives.” — Jake Loosararian, 1:23:50

Key Points

Brian Armstrong (Coinbase)

• Regulatory clarity finally arriving (3:15) - New administration bringing sensible crypto regulation
• Bank partnerships (7:00) - Five of top 20 global banks using Coinbase infrastructure
• Stablecoin growth (18:00) - Will become default payment rails for internet commerce
• Layer 2 scaling (24:30) - Transaction costs dropping below $0.01, enabling micro-transactions
• On-chain identity (31:15) - Verified credentials enabling new financial services on-chain
• Global economic freedom (36:40) - Crypto providing financial access in developing nations

Andrew Feldman (Cerebras)

• Wafer-scale processors (40:15) - Single chip the size of dinner plate with 900,000 cores
• 100x faster training (45:31) - Compared to traditional GPU clusters
• Time-to-insight advantage (48:20) - Strategic value of rapid iteration cycles
• Moore’s Law limits (52:45) - Physics constraining traditional chip scaling
• Specialized AI compute (56:10) - Domain-specific architectures outperforming general purpose
• Inference vs training tradeoffs (1:02:30) - Different optimization strategies for each workload

Jake Loosararian (Gecko Robotics)

• Industrial infrastructure crisis (1:10:15) - Aging plants, pipelines, ships failing due to inadequate inspection
• AI-powered robots (1:15:40) - Combining computer vision, ultrasound, thermal imaging
• Finding hidden failures (1:23:50) - Detecting cracks, corrosion, stress fractures humans miss
• Preventing catastrophic events (1:27:20) - Stories of averting explosions, sinkings, environmental disasters
• Digital twins of infrastructure (1:31:35) - Building 3D models to predict remaining asset life
• Physical AI frontier (1:34:10) - Robots in real world, not just digital agents

Mentions

Companies

• Coinbase - Crypto exchange and infrastructure provider
• Cerebras - AI chip manufacturer making wafer-scale processors
• Gecko Robotics - AI-powered industrial inspection robots
• JP Morgan (7:15) - Bank using Coinbase infrastructure
• PNC Bank (7:20) - Bank using Coinbase infrastructure
• Circle (19:30) - USDC stablecoin issuer
• NVIDIA (54:20) - GPU manufacturer dominating AI training market

Technologies

• Stablecoins (18:00) - Dollar-backed cryptocurrencies for payments
• Layer 2 scaling (24:30) - Technologies reducing blockchain transaction costs
• Base (26:15) - Coinbase’s Layer 2 network
• WSE-3 (42:40) - Cerebras’ third-generation wafer-scale engine
• Computer vision (1:16:20) - AI technology for visual inspection

Surprising Quotes

“Ten years ago, regulators threatened to shut us down. Today, the world’s biggest banks are using our infrastructure. That’s how fast this industry has matured.” — Brian Armstrong, 9:45

“If you’re training a model on a traditional GPU cluster, by the time you’re done, your competitors have already deployed three iterations. Speed is everything.” — Andrew Feldman, 47:30

“People get excited about ChatGPT, but our robots are literally preventing industrial disasters that would make headlines worldwide. That’s the real-world impact of AI.” — Jake Loosararian, 1:25:40

Transcript

0:00 This guy is literally gonna hover over us. This pilot hates podcasting. What a prick. The besties are broadcasting from the USA House at the World Economic Forum. Our episode is sponsored by the New York Stock Exchange.

[Full transcript available covering interviews with Brian Armstrong (Coinbase), Andrew Feldman (Cerebras), and Jake Loosararian (Gecko Robotics) on crypto adoption, AI compute, and industrial robotics]