Coinbase CEO Sees Crypto Community Count Growing to 1 Billion in a Decade Despite Current Market Bearishness

Coinbase CEO, and co-founder, Brian Armstrong has made some ambitious declarations for cryptocurrency, as he expects big things for the industry in the next decade or two.

Despite the gloomy sentiment around the industry since the start of 2022, Armstrong has shown that his long-term prospects are significantly bullish. In a recent conference, the Coinbase executive crypto figure asserted that at least one billion people would have entered the crypto ecosystem in the next ten years, explaining:

“My guess is that in 10-20 years, we’ll see a substantial portion of GDP happening in the crypto economy.”

Coinbase CEO’s Not Unreasonable

Taking the growth of new crypto entrants in the last year into account, Armstrong’s projection is not unreasonable in the slightest bit. In the first half of 2021, the number of crypto users jumped by over a hundred percent, as the crypto industry user count jumped past 220 million.

It is worth mentioning that in the period where crypto users doubled (early 2021), the prices of Bitcoin and almost all altcoins were in price discovery mode, with several all-time highs getting recorded frequently. This was the same period where the benchmark cryptocurrency recorded its all-time high of $69,000, about 45% higher than the current price.

Meanwhile, Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood also gave a speech at the conference. Wood warned that financial firms could lose their qualified employees if they fail to align with the DeFi sector. She noted:

“In the case of DeFi and next-generation internet, we are seeing a lot of financial companies losing talent to crypto. So they have to take it seriously, or else they are going to be hollowed out.”