Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, recently outlined his top ten ideas for the future of crypto, expressing his hope that developers will harness the bear market to elevate these concepts.
In a company blog post and presentation on August 30, Armstrong detailed the ideas he believes hold potential in the digital asset space, saying he shared these “with the hope that someone goes out and builds them,” before noting that “ideas are cheap.”
One of the highlighted concepts was a “flatcoin,” a decentralized stablecoin tied to inflation to maintain purchasing power, potentially backed by a range of assets or algorithmically controlled. Armstrong mentioned services like Ampleforth and Truflation, which may already facilitate on-chain inflation tracking, as a step towards decentralization. He noted the necessity of such a coin because people are hesitant to spend Bitcoin, and fiat-backed stablecoins face issues with inflation and seizure, much like fiat currency.
Another idea was “on-chain reputation,” a system assigning reputation scores to wallet addresses or ENS names based on their on-chain activities, akin to Google’s PageRank. This system could be employed for lending, ratings, and fraud prevention.
Additionally, Armstrong discussed the potential of “onchain ads,” Web3 advertisements that compensate based on on-chain actions instead of views or clicks in Web2. Smart contracts could define payouts, and wallets could select which ads to display.
Armstrong also proposed “onchain capital formation” as a method to democratize fundraising and assist ICOs and startups in raising funds on-chain in a trusted and compliant manner. He noted that the ICO craze had a valid reason, as global capital formation remains excessively frictional, and democratizing fundraising could unleash significant latent entrepreneurial energy worldwide.
Furthermore, Armstrong expressed optimism for a crypto jobs and tasks marketplace, which could facilitate global crypto job searches, enable crypto payments, and eliminate cross-border payment frictions. Recently, Coinbase partnered with X (formerly Twitter) to introduce a job posting feature.
Armstrong’s sixth idea, “privacy for layer 2,” would introduce private transactions to L2s, instead of exclusively on public blockchains. He noted that while transparency is beneficial in many scenarios, most economic transactions should remain private.
Other ideas encompassed a fully on-chain peer-to-peer exchange, on-chain games featuring asset ownership, and increased real-world asset tokenization.
On-chain games, allowing players to genuinely own in-game assets as NFTs and develop economies and metaverse worlds, are already a reality in crypto. Additionally, tokenization of real-world assets, such as stocks, commodities, real estate, and other valuables, is already employed worldwide.
A recent Boston Consulting Group report predicted that the tokenization of illiquid assets would evolve into a multi-trillion-dollar industry in the coming years.
Brian Armstrong’s last idea was “Software for Network States,” which includes tools to help startup cities and communities manage governance, voting, taxes, and services on-chain. He predicted that many entrepreneurs would regret not starting a crypto company in 2023 and concluded by saying, “Bear markets are for building.”
Coinbase is preparing for its first Coinbase Ventures Builder Summit in California in October, and Armstrong’s public appearance and sharing of these ideas could be an effort to generate interest for the event. This summit might be an excellent opportunity for entrepreneurs and developers to discuss and start working on Armstrong’s ideas and other innovative solutions in the crypto space.
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