Morning Edition · Monday, August 17, 2026Published at 1:44 AM EDT · New York

Armstrong Says Software Agents Need Crypto Rails as Investors Return to Usage Metrics

The Coinbase chief executive calls crypto "the currency of agentic finance," a claim that only holds if fees and settlement times fall to levels machine-to-machine payments can bear.

Brian Armstrong, chief executive of Coinbase, argued this week that autonomous software agents need money that is programmable, global and cheap to move, and described crypto as "the currency of AiFi," his term for agentic finance. The unde…