Coinbase CEO Says Crypto Integration Could Be ’10x Unlock’ for AI

Coinbase has teamed up with Perplexity AI to bring real-time AI-powered, crypto data to traders, Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong announced on X.

In a post on Thursday, Armstrong said the collaboration will undergo a two-phase integration. In the first phase, Perplexity will focus on Coinbase market data, including the COIN50 index, with the information available on Perplexity’s new Comet browser.

“I expect enhanced crypto functionality will be a catalyst for AI to achieve another 10x unlock,” he said. “Personally, I’m most excited to see crypto wallets fully integrated into LLMs one day. That will be a huge step towards a permissionless, digital economy.”

The announcement is part of a broader strategy to connect artificial intelligence and crypto, a future Coinbase sees as inevitable. In 2024, Coinbase implemented machine learning tools to predict traffic spikes and scale resources, aiming to avoid crashes and improve efficiency.

“We believe crypto will be the financial system for AI,” Mark Troianovski, Coinbase’s head of partnerships and business development, told Decrypt. “As AI agents become more capable, they’ll need secure, transparent, and programmable ways to transact—and blockchain technology is the best fit.”

Troianovski said that Coinbase is focused on enabling this future by making on-chain payments easy and accessible to both humans and agents, building “AI-native ways to trade and helping people access crypto insights in LLMs.”

AI’s role in on-chain finance will expand rapidly, he added—but not without challenges. While AI will make on-chain data more accessible, Troianovski warned it must be deployed with safeguards, something crypto’s transparency and programmability can help ensure.

The announcement reflects a broader trend of AI’s expanding role in the cryptocurrency market. Currently, the market capitalization for AI-related tokens is approximately $26.5 billion, according to CoinGecko.

While no release date for Phase 2 was announced, Armstrong said on X that it is coming “soon.” The next phase, he said, will integrate Coinbase market data directly into Perplexity’s responses, enabling users to monitor market activity, explore trade ideas, and access token-specific information through natural language queries.

A longtime proponent of artificial intelligence, Armstrong has previously argued that AI, like earlier tech innovations, should remain unregulated to foster growth.

“This new access to reliable real-time data via increasingly intelligent LLMs will help lots more people make smart, informed decisions about crypto,” Armstrong said. “It’s a great step forward!”