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Brian Armstrong brought the boss energy to Singapore this week, sitting down with builders on Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum Layer-2 network, to hear project pitches and offer direct feedback. The roundtable at Coinbase’s Singapore office is part of a broader push to cement the city-state as the company’s operational nerve center for the Asia-Pacific region.
Building the Base in Singapore
Armstrong met directly with developers building on the Layer-2 network, reviewing their projects and providing feedback. Base, which Coinbase launched in February 2023, has processed over 100 million transactions. That volume has made it a cornerstone of Coinbase’s strategy around active payments and what the company calls AI-agent finance, the idea that autonomous software agents will eventually handle financial transactions on behalf of users.
Coinbase is targeting approximately 200 employees at its Singapore engineering office by the end of 2026, a significant commitment for a team that handles development on Advanced trading products, among other things. Armstrong’s visit included sessions with engineering leaders focused on code quality and scalability.
Singapore as regulatory safe harbor
Just days after the roundtable, Coinbase received in-principle approval for a major payments institution licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore. That licence permits the company to offer regulated digital payment token services in the country.
The licence is expected to boost several Coinbase products in the market, including the XSGD stablecoin and Coinbase Business, the company’s suite of tools for corporate clients looking to integrate crypto payments.
Growing the ecosystem
Beyond the builder roundtable, Coinbase has lined up a $150,000 live trading competition scheduled for October 8, 2026. The event is designed to spotlight the wallet and Base ecosystem.
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