While Binance co-founder and former CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao made the headlines following his interview at the just-concluded World Economic Forum, where he called a Bitcoin supercycle in 2026, his crypto counterpart and Coinbase CEO, Brian Armstrong, has come forward with feedback from the global event held in Davos, Switzerland.

Coinbase CEO Praises Trump-Led White House As Most Crypto-Forward Government 

In a January 24 post on the social media platform X, Armstrong shared a few key “themes and takeaways” from the latest edition of WEF. After admitting that the conference offered a productive time of meeting people one-on-one, the Coinbase CEO revealed that the major focus was on pushing crypto adoption globally.

Starting his list of takeaways, Armstrong highlighted that everyone was talking about tokenization, which is beginning to expand to every asset class in the world. The crypto leader said to expect some major progress in the tokenization sector in 2026, especially as the Fortune 500 business leaders continuously lean in.

Secondly, the Coinbase CEO shared that crypto legislation and the CLARITY Act were another area of focus, as the government of the day looks to make the United States the crypto capital of the world. According to Armstrong, most of the bank CEOs he met at the WEF in the past week are actually pro-crypto.

Armstrong wrote on X:

One CEO of a top 10 global bank told me crypto is their number one priority, and they view it as existential.

Furthermore, the Coinbase CEO lauded the Trump administration as the most crypto-forward government in the world at the moment. Armstrong acknowledged their progress with the crypto market structure, stating that these clear rules are crucial for global competitiveness and will put money back in people’s pockets.

In what seemed like a cheeky tone, Armstrong mentioned that ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) and DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) topics didn’t come up throughout the forum. According to the crypto founder, the week felt productive, as it centered around real, global progress — all thanks to BlackRock CEO and new WEF co-chair Larry Fink.

The Coinbase leader touted crypto and AI (artificial intelligence) as the most talked-about technologies in today’s world. Highlighting their compatibility, Armstrong stated that AI agents will eventually default to using stablecoins for payments, as they cannot be KYC’d like human beings.

Finally, Armstrong revealed that the Coinbase, Circle, and Bermuda partnership to build a fully on-chain economy was announced at WEF Davos 2026. “Excited to make progress on this and create a compelling case study for other nations to follow,” the crypto CEO concluded.

Total Crypto Market Cap At $3.09 Trillion

As of this writing, the global cryptocurrency market has a total capitalization of $3.086 trillion, with Bitcoin retaining its spot as the world’s largest cryptocurrency.

The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos felt different this year, and not just because Meta and Salesforce took over storefronts on the main promenade. AI dominated the conversation in a way that overshadowed traditional topics like climate change and global poverty, and the CEOs weren’t holding back. There was public criticism of trade policy, warnings about AI […]

At the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, crypto moved away from price cycles and ideological debates toward a more practical focus: how blockchain is being used inside the global financial system.

Across panels, side events, and executive interviews, tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs) emerged as the clearest signal of where crypto is heading next. With the value of tokenized assets now exceeding $22 billion, Davos framed tokenization less as an experiment and more as infrastructure in active use.

The shift was evident in both the tone and the participants. Rather than startups pitching concepts, conversations featured central bank officials, large asset managers, and executives from firms in the tokenization space. The emphasis shifted from whether blockchain belongs in finance to how quickly it can be scaled.

Tokenization Moves From Concept to Financial Infrastructure

Panels such as “Is Tokenization the Future?” underlined how assets traditionally seen as illiquid, bonds, equities, funds, and real estate, are increasingly represented on-chain.

Executives from Coinbase and Ripple, alongside European Central Bank officials, described tokenization as a way to reduce settlement times, improve liquidity, and allow fractional ownership without rebuilding the financial system from scratch.

Institutions including BlackRock, BNY Mellon, and Euroclear confirmed they have moved beyond pilot programs and are deploying tokenized instruments at scale.

Data shared during the forum showed that the total value locked in tokenized RWAs has passed $22 billion, reflecting broader asset coverage and growing institutional participation. Ethereum currently hosts more than 65% of these assets, underlining its role as the main settlement layer for tokenization activity.

Regulation and Stablecoins Shape the Next Phase

Regulatory clarity was repeatedly cited as the key factor behind this momentum. Frameworks finalized in 2025 in the US and parts of Europe provided banks and custodians with clearer rules on issuance, custody, and compliance.

In Davos, US President Donald Trump reinforced this direction by pointing to the GENIUS Act, which established a federal framework for payment stablecoins.

Stablecoins were described as the “plumbing” connecting traditional finance, decentralized finance, and tokenized assets. Rather than competing with banks, they are increasingly used for settlement, treasury operations, and cross-border transfers.

What Davos 2026 Signals for Crypto Investors

For investors, Davos 2026 suggested that crypto’s next growth phase may be less speculative and more structural.

Consulting firms such as McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group estimate that tokenized assets could reach between $2 trillion and $16 trillion by 2030. The focus on regulated products, institutional adoption, and market infrastructure points to a longer-term shift.

Tokenization’s rise at Davos indicates that crypto’s role in global finance is being defined less by volatility and more by utility, an important signal for how the sector may evolve in the years ahead.

Cover image from ChatGPT, BTCUSD chart from Tradingview

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse used a Davos stage at the World Economic Forum’s 2026 annual meeting to make a pragmatic case for tokenization: stablecoins are already the lead use case, momentum has shifted sharply in the US, and the industry’s job now is to deliver measurable benefits rather than tokenize assets for novelty.

Why Ripple Is Building Bridges Between TradFi and DeFi

Garlinghouse’s remarks came on a panel titled “Is Tokenization the Future?” after the moderator cited Ripple-linked traction: tokenized assets on the XRP Ledger surged more than 2,200% last year. From there, Garlinghouse largely aligned with the panel’s theme that tokenization is moving from pilots toward mainstream financial plumbing, while drawing a clear boundary around monetary sovereignty.

“I do think the first poster child of tokenization is really stablecoins,” Garlinghouse said, arguing that usage growth has been decisive. He cited stablecoin transaction volumes rising from “$19 trillion of transactions on stablecoins in 2024” to “33 trillion in 2025,” describing that as “about 75% growth” and adding that “many in our industry would say that’s going to continue.”

Where the discussion turned to a “Bitcoin standard” framing, Garlinghouse emphasized the political reality of state money. “Sovereignty of fiat currencies, I believe, is for many countries sacrosanct,” he said, before invoking a line he attributed to Ben Bernanke from a prior Ripple event: “Governments will roll tanks into the street before giving up monetary supply, giving up the control of monetary supply, which stuck with me as yeah, that makes sense.”

That worldview shaped how Garlinghouse positioned Ripple’s strategy. “At Ripple, we very much focused on building the bridges between traditional finance and decentralized finance,” he said, describing work “with a lot of the banks around the world” as the practical path to scale rather than attempting to displace existing monetary regimes.

Garlinghouse also framed 2026 as a momentum year, not just a technology year. He argued that the political climate in the US has turned materially more constructive after a period he described as open hostility. “The US, the largest economy in the world, has been pretty openly hostile towards facets of crypto and blockchain technologies,” he said. “And that has shifted dramatically, you know, starting with the White House… [and] helped elect a much more pro-crypto pro-innovation Congress, and you’re seeing that play out.”

But the Ripple CEO repeatedly cautioned that narrative tailwinds are not enough. “Part of the tokenization topic […] is like we shouldn’t tokenize everything just to tokenize something,” Garlinghouse said. “There has to be a positive outcome of efficiency or transparency […] otherwise it’s just like okay it’s a nice science experiment.”

On regulation, Garlinghouse reiterated his pragmatic tone, arguing that the push for US crypto legislation should prioritize workable clarity over theoretical perfection. “What’s going on in the US right now is a classic dynamic of when you create new law, it’s never going to be perfect,” he said. “I subscribe to the idea that perfection is the enemy of good.”

He pointed to Ripple’s own history: “a five-year battle with the US government being sued because of the lack of clarity” to underline the stakes, adding: “We are very much an advocate of clarity is better than chaos.”

When pressed on whether stablecoins should pay rewards, one of the live fault lines in US policy debate, Garlinghouse positioned Ripple as less directly exposed than some peers, while still endorsing competitive symmetry. “Ripple doesn’t have as much of a dog in that fight as others in the industry,” he said, but added that a “level playing field goes two ways,” arguing that crypto firms and banks should face comparable standards when competing for the same activity.

Garlinghouse also addressed energy concerns around blockchain-based infrastructure, pushing back on a one-size-fits-all critique. “Not all layer 1 blockchains are created equal,” he said, contrasting proof-of-work systems with proof of stake and other consensus models, and arguing that stablecoin activity is already skewing toward “more power efficient blockchains.”

Spirited dialogue during today’s WEF session (to say the least), but one important point of agreement across the panelists was that innovation and regulation aren’t on opposite sides.

I firmly believe this is THE moment to use crypto and blockchain technology to enable economic… https://t.co/4d3jNeNC4h

— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) January 21, 2026

On tokenization’s social and market impact, Garlinghouse reframed a question about speculation as a question about access. He said he sees the opportunity in “the democratization of access to investment less so on the speculation side,” pointing to the idea that smaller investors could gain exposure to assets that are effectively inaccessible at modest ticket sizes today.

At press time, XRP traded at $1.9554.