Ark Invest's Cathie Wood interviews Coinbase chief Brian Armstrong in New York. Photo: Crystal Kim/Axios
All the suits were at Coinbase x FT's State of Crypto Summit in New York yesterday.
Issuers behind the spot bitcoin ETFs including BlackRock, as well as bank executives, venture capitalists, analysts, startup founders and the reporters who cover them, were in attendance.
Zoom in: ARK Invest founder Cathie Wood, whose firm invests in tech companies like crypto exchange Coinbase, chatted with Brian Armstrong 👆 in a breezy, yet snooze-y conversation about the promise of crypto.
One piece of news: Armstrong said he's spoken with a dozen senators in the last few days, with various pieces of crypto legislation being drafted on the Hill.
"Crypto is finally getting organized politically," Armstrong said, and Wood attributed much of that to the crypto exchange's efforts.
"Thank you, Coinbase for bringing us all along and leading the effort in Washington," she said.
When Trump came up, Armstrong focused on the importance of crypto becoming part of the conversation. "It's going to be actually one of the top issues in this election. So crypto's arrived."
💭 Crystal's thought bubble: It is bananas that the pair of influential leaders in tech couldn't muster more energy on stage.
What Coinbase got right though... was getting people through the door with their new smart wallet.
Zoom in: They sent me an email with a link, I clicked on it and OK'd downloading the app, which set up automatically via biometric verification.
That meant I could breeze through the front door, spend mere seconds verifying who I was with registration staff and enter — this was a dramatically improved experience with NFT-ticketed events.
The bottom line: That's the kind of crypto wallet experience to tout at an event with a captive TradFi audience.
