Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said bitcoin has likely bottomed for the current cycle and will trend higher over the next two years into the next halving, calling it his personal view. Bitcoin traded at $78,034 the same day, falling as the U.S.-Iran conflict escalated and Treasury yields stayed elevated. Armstrong also said the Clarity Act is "right on the finish line" in the Senate, with SEC and CFTC rules as a fallback within two weeks.
A cycle low has already been set, according to Coinbase Global's chief executive, who told Bloomberg Television in Singapore that the token will grind higher across the next two years on the way to the following halving. Bitcoin changed hands at $78,034 while he spoke.
"I personally think we've seen the bottom of the Bitcoin price in this cycle, and it's going to start to trend up over the coming year or two as we reach the next halving event," Armstrong said.
The call lands on a red tape. Bitcoin fell to $78,033.6 by 03:52 ET (07:52 GMT), with the decline arriving as the U.S.-Iran conflict escalated and Treasury yields stayed elevated. Broader cryptocurrency prices traded lower alongside it. Armstrong framed the forecast as his personal assessment of Bitcoin's direction rather than a statement of how the asset will perform.
The gap between the two is the story. Armstrong's cycle thesis rests on the four-year halving rhythm rather than on any flow or price evidence he cited, and the market's immediate response was to sell. A bottom call from the head of the largest U.S.-listed crypto exchange carries weight with retail and institutional participants precisely because of Coinbase's position — the venue sets the reference price many U.S. investors trade against. That gives the comment reach beyond a single interview, but it also means the claim is testable against the same tape everyone else can see.
Bitcoin's move to $78,033.6 came with two macro headwinds running at once. Escalation in the U.S.-Iran conflict pushed capital toward haven assets, and elevated Treasury yields kept the cost of holding non-yielding assets high. Both are the kind of conditions that have historically pressured crypto alongside risk equities, and neither is resolved by a halving calendar.
Armstrong's forecast implies a view on future institutional flows into bitcoin without naming a single flow figure. No ETF creation data, no exchange netflow, no derivatives positioning accompanied the call. That absence matters for how the signal should be weighted: a directional cycle forecast is a statement about the shape of the next two years, not a claim about what buyers are doing this week.
The halving anchor is the part with a verifiable clock. Bitcoin's next halving follows the four-year schedule Armstrong referenced, and the historical pattern he is leaning on — supply issuance cut in half, price higher over the following 12 to 24 months — has held across prior cycles with wide variance in timing and drawdown depth. Armstrong's own framing, "over the coming year or two," leaves that variance intact.
Coinbase's equity sits on the other side of the same trade. COIN has historically traded as a leveraged expression of crypto activity, so a sustained bitcoin uptrend would lift transaction revenue and retail volume, while a prolonged stay near $78,000 would compress both. The CEO's public optimism and the company's revenue sensitivity point the same direction, which is worth noting when weighing how much independent information the call carries.
Armstrong paired the price view with a regulatory timeline that is closer to resolution than the cycle call. He said regulatory clarity "has been getting a lot better" and that the Clarity Act is "right on the finish line" in the Senate, calling passage "a big milestone for crypto."
"If it doesn't pass, the regulators in the U.S., the SEC and the CFTC, have come out and said they're ready to publish clear rules anyway," Armstrong said. "So we'll either get it from the Senate or from the regulators I think in the next week or two."
That two-week window is the nearest dated event in the interview and the one with the clearest market structure consequence. A Senate pass or agency rulemaking would settle the classification question that has shaped U.S. listing and trading decisions for years, affecting Coinbase, Kraken and other U.S.-facing venues along with the token issuers that list on them. Armstrong described the timing and outcome as his own assessment of the process.
He also named four areas of highest conviction heading into 2027: stablecoin payments, equity tokenization, prediction markets and agentic finance. On tokenized equities, he said he hopes they can be introduced in the U.S. "soon." Separately, he criticized California's proposed wealth tax, saying it "would be a bad thing for California" and that a large number of tech founders he knows are planning to leave the state or already have.
For bitcoin holders, the practical read is a split signal. The regulatory leg has a date attached and a defined set of beneficiaries. The price leg has neither, and the tape on the day of the call ran the other way. Confirmation would show up as ETF inflows and spot volume expanding while bitcoin holds above the $78,000 area; failure to hold that level would leave the bottom call as a sentiment marker rather than a turning point.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
