10 Crypto Ideas That Should be Developed in Bear Market, According to Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong

Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, revealed a list of ten ideas that he’s most interested in and hopes that developers turn these ideas into reality amidst the bear market.

Despite mounting regulator pressure on the home turf, Armstrong said Coinbase has its hands full with different projects and “doesn’t have time to tackle everything.” The exec stated that the lackluster prices are the optimal time for delving deep into building new projects.

In the latest blog post, Armstrong shared ten concepts that require developers’ attention. These involve the development of projects for – flatcoins, on-chain reputation, ads, work marketplaces, etc., – that would cater to the needs of the Web3 crowd.

“I’m sometimes asked, if you were to start another crypto company today, what would it be? The crypto space is in its infancy. In five years, many entrepreneurs will be looking back wishing they had started a crypto company in 2023. Bear markets are for building, so why not start today?”

• Flatcoins: A “better form of money enabled by crypto,” as described by Armstrong, that is decentralized (censorship-resistant), tracks consumer prices, and is designed to preserve purchasing power. It may be backed by a basket of assets to track CPI or use an algorithmic approach.
• On-chain Reputation: This is essentially a decentralized protocol that assigns a reputation score to each address or ENS name based on the graph of on-chain data. According to the exec, this concept will work similarly to how PageRank scores every website and can be used for lending (a decentralized FICO score), ratings on merchants (Yelp), fraud prevention, airdrops to VIPs, etc.
• Onchain ads: The Web3 iteration of advertisements could operate on the basis of on-chain actions for payouts, diverging from the Web2 ads that rely on views or clicks. These adverts might incorporate smart contracts to define payouts alongside wallets with the ability to select which ads to display.
• Onchain Capital Formation: Armstrong characterized “Onchain capital formation” as another concept that democratizes fundraising and aids the next wave of ICOs and startups in raising funds on the blockchain in a compliant and reliable manner. The Coinbase chief believes “democratizing fundraising could unlock tremendous latent entrepreneurial energy across the world.”
• Job/Task Marketplace: This concept of a marketplace aims to eliminate major barriers to the global job market by addressing issues regarding routing payments to individuals cross-border.
• Privacy for L2: The sixth idea put forth by Armstrong was “layer 2 privacy,” a concept that introduces confidential transactions to Layer 2.
• P2P exchange on-chain: The current P2P exchanges are run by centralized entities that are susceptible to external pressure that might lead to shutdown, eroding personal freedoms. Armstrong floated the idea of a decentralized P2P exchange – run entirely on-chain, with escrow, reputation, and mediation.
• Onchain games: Armstrong believes the potential of how cryptocurrency can intersect with games has only begun to be explored, with much more to discover beneath the surface.
• RWA: The CEO doubled down on the need to build more real-world assets powered by “programmability, composability, 24/7 global liquidity, and trust-minimized settlement.”
• Tools for network states: According to the Coinbase exec, this movement could help accelerate start-up cities and network states, which, once launched, will need tools to manage voting, fundraising, governance, citizenship, and more.