From Experiment to Power Struggle in the Crypto Industry: Trump's Davos Visit and Coinbase's Policy Clash

Cryptocurrency is undergoing an identity transformation. From once being a “high-risk experimental project,” it has evolved into a battleground for global financial infrastructure. This shift has been vividly reflected in two recent events: first, Trump is set to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos; second, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong publicly opposes a proposed cryptocurrency bill. While these two events seem unrelated, they actually reveal a deeper reality—the crypto space is no longer about hype over technological innovation but about a power struggle over the fundamental rules governing modern economies.

Davos Has Changed: From “Idea Forum” to “Institutional Competition Arena”

This year’s Davos Forum will send an important political signal. Trump will attend in person next week, his first time participating in the forum in six years. Meanwhile, the U.S. pavilion has officially returned to Davos, with an expected participation of about 3,000 people from over 130 countries, including a record number of political leaders and business executives.

Behind these numbers lies a profound change in the nature of the Davos Forum. Historically, Davos was a platform for global elites to exchange ideas; now, it has transformed into a venue for substantive negotiations among governments and corporations around “institutional design at the infrastructure level.” Especially in strategic fields like artificial intelligence, energy, and supply chains, the forum no longer stops at “how should we think,” but shifts toward “how should we build and control.”

The core logic of this shift is clear: in a technology-driven global economy, whoever controls the rules of the underlying infrastructure will control the economic lifeline of the next decade. Trump’s presence in Davos, to some extent, is a signal to the world—that the U.S. government will take a more active role in this institutional contest.

Crypto Finance Quietly Upgrading to “Strategic Infrastructure”

In tandem, the rapid evolution of digital finance is underway.

Currently, the daily settlement volume of stablecoins has reached tens of billions of dollars, widely used in cross-border payments and fund flow management. More importantly, the trend of tokenization is penetrating traditional capital markets—from fund products to real-world assets—digital reconstruction has become an irreversible trend.

What does this mean? It means that cryptocurrencies have completed their identity shift from “edge experiments” to “core infrastructure.” In 2025, the Davos Web3 Center released the “Web3 Davos Declaration,” which explicitly proposed four principles: “Responsible Innovation, Sustainable Development, Accountability, and Trust.” Essentially, this is paving the way for the legal recognition of digital finance within the traditional economic system.

Crypto is no longer an “option”; it is becoming a “standard” that modern financial systems must face directly.

Trump’s “Digital Competitiveness” Strategy

Trump’s real intention in attending Davos aligns closely with his long-standing economic philosophy. He has always emphasized “sovereignty, influence, and national competitiveness,” and cryptocurrencies happen to be at the intersection of these three dimensions.

From a policy perspective, digital assets can achieve faster settlement speeds, create new ways of capital formation, and improve financial efficiency—all aligning perfectly with the policy goal of “economic growth.” But at the same time, digital assets also bring sensitive issues such as “financial regulation, sanctions enforcement, and the dollar’s status.”

While Davos is not a legislative body, it is a key stage for “policy priority transmission.” Trump’s attitude and positioning on cryptocurrencies and digital finance here will directly influence market expectations and the policies of global regulatory agencies. The return of the U.S. pavilion further emphasizes this—America is turning Davos into a strategic weapon for “shaping technological narratives, capital flows, and global influence.”

What Is Behind Coinbase’s “Resistance”

In this context, Coinbase CEO Armstrong’s refusal to support the proposed cryptocurrency bill is particularly significant. This is not simply “opposing regulation,” but “organized resistance to unreasonable regulatory design.”

Armstrong’s core concerns can be summarized in three points:

First, the bill creates “artificial winners and losers.” The bill clearly favors large existing companies and centralized institutions, potentially squeezing out innovative startups and decentralized networks. Essentially, it is using policy tools to freeze the current industry landscape.

Second, it increases compliance burdens rather than reducing uncertainty. The bill does not clearly define operational rules for crypto products but instead piles on a series of new compliance obligations, resulting in higher legal risks rather than lower.

Third, it destroys the core advantages of decentralization. The bill will push the crypto ecosystem toward high centralization, undermining the most fundamental resilience and global interoperability of cryptocurrencies, ultimately risking the outflow of innovation resources.

Armstrong’s stance reflects an important shift in the crypto industry: as cryptocurrencies become part of the financial infrastructure, poorly designed regulation could pose systemic risks. Therefore, the industry has upgraded from “demanding regulation” to “demanding scientific and reasonable regulation.”

The Truth of the Power Struggle: Who Sets the Rules of the Economy

Trump’s trip to Davos and Armstrong’s opposition to the bill are actually two sides of the same power struggle.

Trump represents political power trying to control the “institutional framework of the future of digital finance”; Armstrong represents industry forces trying to prevent “premature and unreasonable rule locking.” The former seeks to establish U.S. dominance in the global digital economy through political influence, while the latter fights to preserve space for innovation and decentralization within the crypto ecosystem.

The ultimate focus of this confrontation boils down to an age-old question: Who has the authority to decide the underlying rules of modern economics?

For years, crypto practitioners have argued that “any regulation is better than no regulation,” but that stance has undergone a fundamental shift. The industry now recognizes that the key is not whether there is regulation, but whether the regulation is scientific, whether it protects innovation’s vitality, and whether it can adapt to rapidly changing technological landscapes.

As Trump enters Davos with a political agenda of “American competitiveness,” and crypto industry leaders build defenses on the legislative front, the true identity of cryptocurrencies is no longer “edge financial innovation,” but “a new battleground for modern economic power.” On this battlefield, every policy, every forum speech, and every legislative proposal is redefining who can control the future economic system.

The story of crypto is only just beginning.