Bridgewater Founder Ray Dalio, Carlyle’s David Rubenstein, and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong Speak with Becky Quick on "Squawk Box"

CNBC's Becky Quick sat down with Bridgewater Associates Founder Ray Dalio, Carlyle Co-Chairman David Rubenstein, and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where they discussed Wealth Tax, Greenland, and Crypto.

Interview with Bridgewater Associates Founder Ray Dalio

DALIO ON BREAKDOWN MONETARY ORDER

RAY DALIO: Let's step back from the sensational and be clear about what I mean. The monetary order is breaking down. Okay? What I mean by the monetary order is that fiat currencies and debt as a store hold of wealth is not being held by central banks in the same way and that there was a change. The biggest market to move last year was the gold market, far better than the tech markets and so on and the US markets underperformed foreign markets because of the fact you could see it in the numbers of the central banks and so on.


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Video: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2026/01/20/bridgewaters-ray-dalio-on-capital-war-fears-the-monetary-order-is-breaking-down.html

DALIO ON TECH REVOLUTION PORTFOLIO

DALIO: We are in a wonderful technological revolution in which there's going to be new tech creating great disruptions, and not so much from, there are the hyperscalers and so on — but there's the impact of those on companies that are going to use that and so on. So I want a part of my portfolio to be in those kinds so I'm kind of in a mixture of new tech and diversified with an element of gold. That's where my biases are.

DALIO ON WEALTH TAX

DALIO: I believe in the next year, as you start with California and you broaden it, you'll start to see it as an important issue. You'll start to see people changing locations and so on. This is just mechanics. Okay, I'm just, I'm a bond guy or a market guy. I just have to have debts as accurate as I can, I'm just describing how I see it.


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Interview with Carlyle Co-Chairman David Rubenstein

RUBENSTEIN ON GREENLAND

DAVID RUBENSTEIN: I suspect there will be some negotiations on really things related to Greenland. Right now, we have the right to do militarily, I think, anything we want with respect to Greenland. So it's not a military kind of thing. It's really who owns the minerals and the valuable things there. And probably some people in Greenland would say, if you want to go and excavate this stuff and dig it out, you can get some piece of it. So there's probably a lot of room for compromise. Remember, Harry Truman did try to buy it as well. It's not a novel idea, but I think it's, it's upset a lot of people in Europe.

Video: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2026/01/20/carlyles-david-rubenstein-the-u-s-economy-is-doing-reasonably-well.html

RUBENSTEIN ON ECONOMY

RUBENSTEIN: The US economy, I think, is doing reasonably well. Inflation is pretty much coming down, not quite to the 2% level, but it's below 3% things, unemployment is 4.4% tolerable. I would say interest rates are coming down. We're not facing a recession. AI and AI is doing quite well. There are people that are worried about what the President is going to say tomorrow.

RUBENSTEIN ON QUESTION TO TRUMP

RUBENSTEIN: What I would ask him, is he happy in the job? You know, happiness is the most elusive thing in life, and is he happy? He went through hell to get back to be president again. Is he happy? Are you happy what you're doing? Are you really feeling you're you're doing something, contributing to society, and you happy personally? And is this what you want to do with the next three years of your life? And what do you want to do after you're finished as president? What do you want to do? What do you really regard as your greatest accomplishments? And what do you what is your highest priority the next one or two years?


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Interview with Coinbase CEO & Co-Founder Brian Armstrong

ARMSTRONG ON TOP ISSUE WITH CRYPTO BILL

BRIAN ARMSTRONG: The number one is really around payment of rewards on stable coins. I think Americans should be able to earn more money on their money. Banks should have to compete on a level playing field, and if the American people feel like the banks are not paying high enough interest rates and stable coin rewards can offer them more than maybe the bank should have to pay higher interest rates to compete, right? I don't think there should be any protectionism—

BECKY QUICK: Do you think that that was put in directly for the banks, that was lobbied by the banks and put in?

ARMSTRONG: Yes.

ARMSTRONG ON MEETING WITH BANKS

ARMSTRONG: I have been here meeting with bank CEOs. That's one of the main things I'm doing is trying to figure out, okay, what would get them to a yes, I do believe there's  a win-win outcome. I mean, by the way, Coinbase is actually providing crypto infrastructure services to five of the top 20 banks in the world. And so we were talking with the commercial sides of these banks, and they see it as an opportunity. Their lobbying arms and their trade groups are coming in and trying to ban their competition. And so to me, you shouldn't be able to ban competition.

ARMSTRONG ON COMPETITION

ARMSTRONG: Customers win with competition. I mean, we shouldn't have policies being created in the United States that favor one set of companies over another. There should be clear rules of what's allowed, what's allowed, what's not, and then everyone competes. That's how the customer benefits.

Video: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2026/01/20/coinbase-ceo-brian-armstrong-on-crypto-regulation-banks-should-compete-on-a-level-playing-field.html


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CNBC's "Squawk Box" Anchors Joe Kernen, Becky Quick, and Andrew Ross Sorkin as well as "Squawk on the Street" & "Money Movers" Co-Anchor Sara Eisen will be live again in Davos tomorrow, Thursday, January 22. See guest list below.

Guests for tomorrow, Thursday, January 22,  include: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber CEO, Arthur Mensch, Mistral AI CEO, David Solomon, Goldman Sachs Chairman & CEO, Christian Ulbrich, JLL CEO & President, Bret Taylor, Sierra Co-Founder & CEO, Carl Eschenbach, Workday CEO, Will.i.Am, Philanthropist & Entertainer, Charles Scharf, Wells Fargo CEO, Mike Fries, Liberty Global CEO, Paul Hudson, Sanofi CEO, Michael Dell, Dell Technologies Chairman & CEO, Laura Alber, Williams-Sonoma CEO & President, Jamie Salter, Authentic Brands CEO.

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