Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has responded to NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang’s first-ever post on X, backing the push for open-weight artificial intelligence models and arguing that such systems could become more powerful than closed frontier models in certain enterprise use cases.
Huang’s debut post shared an open letter titled “Open Weights and American AI Leadership,” signed by NVIDIA and several major technology companies, including Meta, Microsoft, and IBM.
The letter argues that open-weight models are critical for expanding access to AI, encouraging competition and maintaining U.S. technological leadership.
Armstrong said Coinbase supports “strong American open-weight models” and revealed that the crypto exchange is already moving more of its workloads toward such systems.
“I think open-weight models may actually outperform frontier models inside companies,” Armstrong wrote.
Armstrong claims that an open-weight model trained on Coinbase’s internal compliance cases could become a better specialist for regulatory tasks than a general-purpose frontier model.
“A fine-tuned model that has seen 100,000 of our compliance cases internally could be a better specialist than any frontier model on its own,” he said.
Huang’s letter compared the current AI landscape to the rise of open-source software in the 1980s. It argues that open models could create a similar foundation for innovation.
The document acknowledged that open-weight models carry risks, including potential misuse. However, it argued that openness could improve AI safety by allowing researchers and security experts to develop appropriate safeguards.
More support for open AI models
Several prominent figures from the technology and crypto communities also reacted positively to Huang’s message, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Block founder Jack Dorsey.
Musk endorsed Huang’s position, writing: “This has my full support. Jensen is right.” Altman said he wants the U.S. to maintain leadership in both open-source and proprietary AI development. Dorsey called the initiative “excellent.”
