Coinbase Expands Stablecoin Banking Push as Armstrong Calls Bitcoin Cycle Bottom

Coinbase and Moov Bring Stablecoin Rails to Community Banks

Coinbase and payments infrastructure provider Moov announced on September 10, 2026, a partnership aimed at bringing stablecoin payments, settlement, custody and real-time funding into systems already used by more than 1,000 U.S. community banks and credit unions. Moov connects those institutions to services including card payments, card issuance and instant transfers, while Coinbase will provide the digital-asset infrastructure that supports stablecoin functionality.

The integration is structured so community banks and credit unions can add stablecoin capabilities without building their own blockchain infrastructure. Coinbase will operate behind the scenes as the digital-asset infrastructure provider while Moov integrates those functions into financial systems the institutions already use. The community institution remains the customer-facing financial provider rather than directing customers to a separate crypto platform.

Coinbase's Payments API and custodial-wallet infrastructure will underpin the arrangement. Custodial Wallet accounts from the Coinbase Developer Platform will be used for asset storage, while the Payments API will coordinate stablecoin movements. The infrastructure is intended to support consumer payments, merchant stablecoin acceptance, business settlement and payouts rather than limiting the service to holding digital assets.

For corporate and merchant activity, Moov will use fully disclosed Coinbase custodial accounts. The structure allows participating banks to maintain their direct customer relationships while Coinbase provides the underlying custody and transaction infrastructure.

Ryan VanGrack, Coinbase's head of corporate affairs, said the model is intended to let smaller financial institutions add modern payment technology without abandoning their existing role in local communities. “Modern tech should meet local institutions where they are, giving them the tools to compete with the largest players while preserving what makes them trusted pillars of their communities.”

Citizens Bank of Edmond CEO Jill Castilla said the demand is tied directly to issues raised by businesses using community banks. “Community banks like ours innovate by solving the problems we hear in our lobby.” Castilla said Citizens Bank of Edmond has spent 125 years listening to Main Street businesses and cited its history of developing patented ATM technology, launching festivals and business incubators, and building small-business support systems during national crises.

Castilla said small-business customers are now looking for ways to lower interchange costs and get paid faster. Moov has also highlighted the ability of stablecoins to facilitate merchant payments and funding without stopping for weekends or holidays because blockchain infrastructure can operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The partnership places Coinbase deeper inside financial infrastructure rather than limiting its role to operating a crypto trading venue or custodian. Coinbase had already expanded its bank-facing relationships before the Moov agreement, including a July 2025 partnership with PNC to bring crypto services to banking customers, followed by relationships involving Citi and JPMorgan.

Coinbase has also described a broader ambition to become an “everything exchange” as it expands its own product range and supplies infrastructure to institutions. The Moov arrangement extends that strategy by allowing customers to potentially interact with Coinbase technology indirectly through their existing banks rather than through Coinbase itself.

Coinbase's stablecoin operations were already operating at significant scale before the latest banking push.

Coinbase has increasingly packaged payments, custody and token issuance through APIs that other companies and financial institutions can use inside their own products. The federal framework described in the supplied information also permits banks and credit unions to provide custody services for payment tokens and associated private keys when those services comply with applicable laws.

Competition is also developing among traditional financial institutions. A consortium involving 21 financial firms, including Bank of America, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, is developing its own stablecoin with a targeted 2027 launch.

Armstrong Says Bitcoin Has Bottomed for the Current Cycle

Armstrong said on September 10 that he believes Bitcoin has already reached its bottom for the current market cycle and expects the asset to move higher as the next Bitcoin halving approaches. “I personally think we've seen the bottom of the bitcoin price in this cycle.”

Armstrong added: “It's going to start to trend up over the coming year or two as we reach the next halving event.”

At the time of Armstrong's comments, Bitcoin price was roughly $78,000 and had fallen around 1.7% over the preceding 24 hours. Bitcoin price remained about 38% below its record high of roughly $126,000.

Research published on September 9 found that Bitcoin had risen approximately 23% across 21 trading sessions through that date, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 were broadly flat during the same period. Bitcoin was approaching an overhead resistance zone between $83,000 and $86,000.

Selling pressure had also declined relative to levels recorded around the August peak. The seven-day Sell-Side Risk Ratio stood at 7 basis points per day, compared with 16 basis points per day at the August peak.

Armstrong linked his broader outlook for Coinbase to parts of the business that do not depend solely on Bitcoin or spot-market activity. He said stablecoin payments on Base had increased 700% year over year and cited forecasts calling for the stablecoin market to reach $3 trillion by 2030.

Looking toward 2027, Armstrong identified four areas as major strategic priorities for Coinbase: payments, tokenization, prediction markets and agentic finance. Payments are already reflected in the Moov integration, while Coinbase's regulatory campaign is tied more closely to its plans around tokenization and institutional markets.

CLARITY Act Becomes a Key Regulatory Test

Armstrong also said U.S. digital-asset regulatory clarity could emerge whether or not Congress passes the CLARITY Act, presenting legislation and agency rulemaking as separate routes toward clearer market rules.

The immediate legislative test is a scheduled September 15, 2026, Senate vote on the CLARITY Act. The measure needs 60 Senate votes to clear the procedural hurdle described in the supplied information, while ethics provisions were among the issues still being negotiated before the vote.

Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona said reaching the required threshold depended partly on resolving ethics provisions and other outstanding issues. Armstrong said negotiations appeared very close to a solution and told CNBC's Squawk Box Asia that senators he had spoken with were on board.

Gallego also cited the earlier GENIUS Act as an example of legislation that initially faced uncertain Democratic support but ultimately attracted multiple Democratic votes.

The CLARITY Act is intended to establish a federal digital-asset market framework dividing regulatory responsibilities between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Coinbase has supported the legislation, and Armstrong has argued that passage could reduce enough regulatory uncertainty to bring additional institutional capital into U.S. digital-asset markets.

Armstrong called passage a “regulatory checkbox” that could unlock institutional capital and create room for products including tokenized equities in the United States. He also called passage a big milestone if achieved.

Armstrong did not commit Coinbase to a specific timeline for launching tokenized-equity products. His alternative scenario is that SEC and CFTC rulemaking could independently provide additional market clarity, although regulators have not published a confirmed timetable for that substitute rulemaking.

An SEC statement from January 2026 said a tokenized security remains a security under federal law regardless of whether it is represented or formatted as a crypto asset. The SEC also said tokenized securities can be structured in different ways, including direct issuance by the security's issuer or the creation by an unaffiliated third party of a crypto asset layered on top of an existing security.

That distinction means Coinbase's regulatory push centers on clearer market structure and jurisdiction rather than treating tokenization as a way to remove securities from existing securities law.