Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong Urges ‘Rethink’ of Exchange Listings

Brian Armstrong is calling for regulatory flexibility as his exchange battles to keep up with a deluge of new altcoins.

On X, formerly Twitter, the Coinbase CEO said about one million tokens are now launching each week, meaning “evaluating each one by one is no longer feasible.”

Armstrong confirmed the platform is reviewing its listing process, which sees digital assets undergo rigorous vetting before being made available.

At present, he said, a dedicated group is responsible for assessing altcoins against legal, compliance and technical security standards.

But in the future, Armstrong wants to adopt a different approach—meaning all tokens would be allowed by default, with projects blocked in the event of poor customer reviews or questionable on-chain data.

“Regulators need to understand that applying for approval for each one is totally infeasible at this point as well,” he wrote.

Not all crypto executives agree with Armstrong’s stance. Danny Scott, CEO of the British, Bitcoin-only exchange Coin Corner, replied to ask: “At what point do you guys need a gambling license?”

Expanding upon what he meant, Scott told Decrypt: “It’s Coinbase admitting they just want to list everything and anything, no care for the quality, no care for their customers getting rugged, knowing that alts all trend down against Bitcoin over the years.”

He doubled down on the gambling comparison, too.

“There is now more skill in picking a horse at the races than picking which meme token will pump next, it’s literally gambling at this point and Coinbase wanting to list more is only heightening the problem,” Scott added.

Prominent crypto critic Peter Schiff also piled in on X, telling Armstrong: “So much for the idea of ‘limited supply.’ The inflation rate of digital tokens is off the charts. Almost all of these tokens are virtually identical to Bitcoin in all the ways that really matter, including a hard cap on their individual supply.”

The groundswell of tokens hitting the market has raised fears that “altseason,” which sees smaller cryptocurrencies outperform Bitcoin, may fail to materialize.

On-chain analyst Ali Martinez pointed out that there are now more than 36.4 million altcoins, compared with fewer than 3,000 during the famed bull run in late 2017 and early 2018.

“With such massive supply, the market has changed significantly,” he wrote.

Edited by Stacy Elliott.