Coinbase's Bitcoin Loans are Exploding & Samsung Partnership Revealed! with Ben Shen

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The crypto back loans today allow people to essentially borrow
against bitcoin that they have in their coin base account,
so they can get instant liquidity without selling the bitcoin.
Staking empowers our users to allow financial freedom by partaking
in the cryptoeconomy, earning rewards on their stakable crypto assets.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
What are your thoughts on the toganization market. A lot
of these firms looking to put a lot of different
things on the blockchain, whether it be stocks, gold, and
other assets.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Ultimately, on chain economy is one that people are viewing
as increasingly powerful.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
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(00:59):
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(01:21):
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If you'd like to learn more about Propy, visit the
link in the description. Hey, folks, welcome into the Thinking
Crypto podcast. I'm your host, Tony Edward, and joining me
today is Ben Sheen, who is the head of Financial
Services and Loyalty Products at Coinbase. Ben.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
Great to have you, hey, Tony, great to be here.
Excited to chat coinbase and all the products that we're
enrolling up.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah. Absolutely, man, You and the folks at coinbase been
doing a lot of work. There's a lot of cool features,
new things have been launched, and you know, one of
the big milestones you folks have hit recently Ease, which
your crypto back loans crossing over a billion dollars, which
is pretty incredible. Well, before we get to all of that,
tell us a bit about yourself, where you're from and
your professional background. Cool.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
So I was born in the United States, my parents
were doing their graduate studies, but I grew up properly
in Taiwan, so moved back when I was around two
years old. Had an international education until my high school graduation,
and then moved over to backstate side to go to
Columbia for my undergrad studies. And then in terms of

(02:35):
sort of like other background, prior to joining coinbase, I
started my career on traditional financial services. I was a
equity derivatives or volatility trader on the Goldman SAX trading floor,
and then I moved into an operating role at some point,
but between that spent some time as a cross capitol

(02:55):
structure investor, so investing across high yield distressed equities. I
held to stress debt as well as equities, capital structure, arbitrage, etc.
As an analyst looking at different industries, and then back
in around twenty sixteen, got interested in being an operator,
so being in the ring and building rather than say

(03:15):
betting on the fight, so to speak. So around that
time I had joined what was then Square Cash now
cash App. It was a fledgling sort of ten person
strong startup within then Square now Block, competing really with
Venmo on the P to P space, So wore a
lot of different hats on that journey, you know, really
thinking about how we scale this business, expanded beyond period

(03:39):
a peer into things like you know, users today can
get a debit card, they can direct deposit their paychecks
and millions of people do. They can save, they can
invest in a whole suite of financial services. So was
there helping build that business from the ground up for
the better part of about nine years, and then back
in May came to coinbase and started a new adventure

(04:02):
building out our financial services and loyalty products.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Oh that's awesome, and you know your background, it's so funny.
It touches on some of the key factors that are
so relevant in crypto. You mentioned being at cash app
and the peer peer aspect of that and fintech and
you know, changing the way banking and financial services are
doing it. And you were also in tradfy and all
those things are so prominent now at crypto and obviously

(04:28):
in what coinbase is trying to do. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
Absolutely, I feel like all the worlds are in some
ways converging. Yeah, and there's a lot of let's say,
pattern recognition from you know, my former lives that I
definitely bring into the role I'm in today.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
Along the way, when did you first discover bitcoin or
crypto and what was your aha moment? When did it
click for you?

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah, it was about twenty sixteen, you know, when I
joined cash app. So basically at the time, you know,
the overall ethos was around economic empowerment, you know, innovating
on the boundaries of money itself as well and offering
capabilities to users. In twenty seventeen, cash op actually introduced

(05:11):
bitcoin trating, bitcoin trading, and bitcoin investing.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
To its users.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
So as part of that played a role in thinking
about the strategy how we would roll it out to
our user base, and got really interested in just bitcoin,
read the white paper, got personally invested, and then of
course from there the rabbit hole goes really deep. So
started to understand you know, different you know, different parts
of the crypto ecosystem across ethereum, Salona, et cetera, and

(05:39):
over the years have just continued learning. Of course, there's
a lot of ethos around the cryptospace, trying to do
a lot of the same things around you know, serving users,
leverishing the superpowers of you know, being permissionless, instant money movement,
and a lot of the stuff that I'm sure we'll
talk about today.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
Oh absolutely, let's talk about the crypto backloge loans program
or product that coinbase has, because you guys recently cross
a huge milestone with users borrowing more than a billion
dollars and the locking of over one point three billion
in bitcoin or collateralized bitcoin. Tell us about the growth
of this product and obviously maybe a bit of a background,

(06:17):
what is it and how people can use it?

Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah, so, in a nutshell, the crypto back loans today
allow people to essentially borrow against bitcoin that they have
in their coin Base account, so they can get instant
liquidity without selling the bitcoin of say incurring capital gains
or really just they just want to hold onto their bitcoin,
but they have everyday needs, whether that be you know,

(06:41):
purchases in their everyday lives. We've seen some users make
large discretionary purchases like a car or even a home,
or potentially paying down other debt which is more expensive
and really a whole myriad of use cases. So what
a user can do is they can go into the
Coinbase app. They can you know, either use the bigcoin
they have, or of course they can trade and buy

(07:01):
the bitcoin and then they can instantly look at, you know,
input how much they want to take in terms of
a loan against that bitcoin as collateral of specifying certain
things around loan to value see the borrowing rate. And
then the bitcoin is then locked up in a smart
contract via our integration with Morpho, and the user will
have that USCC immediately which they can use. So it

(07:25):
is truly a much faster product. The rates are very
competitive relative and lower than what a lot of a
lot of other you know, alternate venues to the same
liquidity provide. And we've seen users really really just use
the use the feature for all kinds of needs. So
I guess like we've scaled now to as you mentioned,

(07:46):
over a billion dollars in all time originations, and of
course that's you know, less than a year after we've launched.
And in terms of collateral, I think we're now probably
at like one point four maybe go on one point five
billion and bitcoin collateral. So it really is this you know,
really market improvement over the way a lot of other
people might otherwise get liquidity through the tract by system.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
Oh for sure. So is it a combination of retail
investors as well as institutions that are using this product.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
So all the numbers we talked about are the retail
users using the Coinbase app for their personal accounts and
so like. Of course, the borrowing customer job, so to speak,
is one that spans obviously both retail, institutional et cetera.
And there are other parts of coinbase that are serving
those needs though like not factored into the numbers that

(08:37):
I just mentioned.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
So let's say take myself as an example. I have
maybe a few bitcoin and Coinbase, and I want to
take out a loan to do some upgrades to my
house or I don't know, pay for to a certain
my daughter's college scholarship or whatever or tuition. I should say,
walk us through that process. I'm what percentage of bitcoin's

(09:01):
value am I getting a loan off of? And what
happens with the market volatility? How is that taken into account?

Speaker 1 (09:10):
Yeah, so you can specify a loan to value for
your the loan that you want to take out. Of course,
we have guardrails, right, so we really sort of set
the guardrails to make sure that users are you know,
taking responsible action. Th Ultimately, it's on the user to decide.
For example, if I launch you know the defive borrow

(09:31):
functionality and coinbase, say like I could set a fifty
percent loan to value. So let's just say I have
a one hundred thousand dollars in bitcoin in the account,
I could take a fifty thousand dollars loan, right, get
fifty thousand and USDC proceeds and in your case, for example,
use it to pay that tuition. And then in the app,
we will show you the loan to value based on

(09:52):
the price of bitcoin and the fluctuations, so you'll see
the health of the loan, right.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
So for example fair good.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
And then we also have user facing notifications when there
are market where there's market volatility, where there's the potential
for the collateral to be liquidated or sold. Right that way,
a user can come on and they can decide to
repay the loan, right, they can decide to add more collateral.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
So these are all.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
Sort of like user facing pieces of functionality we give
you so you can get that liquidity and then also
of course manage against that bitcoin collateral as you see fit.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
Got it. And as far as terms is, there are
there terms on being able to borrow. Is it like
five like how the mortgage terms are or a car
loan terms are.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
So today it's they are open ended floating rate terms.
So I think today, if you just open that today,
you can borrow at seven and a half percent, once again,
really competitive versus a lot of the alternatives you'll see.
And you know, the supply and demand essentially in the
market will determine the rates, right, so a user can

(10:58):
kind of monitor the rates. As we continue building out
the feature and functionality, you can expect that we can
think about additional parameters and things that could sell serve
different needs for users. So, but today it is open
ended floating rate terms.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
So open ended, so I could pay us back in
whatever time frame I want.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
Yes, And and we ultimately believe that there's just this
really wider range of potential needs.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
Right.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
You might look to pay off your daughter's tuition in
advance of a paycheck that you might receive in let's
say two weeks, right, And after two weeks you may
want to pay it down and sort of like get
the collateral back and no longer have a loan outstanding.
As I mentioned, we have seen you know, purchases even
up to a home, in which case they're actually taking

(11:53):
that in lieu of let's say a thirty year mortgage, right,
And so in that case, you know that that user
may or may not want to pay it down. You know,
in the immediate term, they might actually want to keep
it that loan outstanding in the same way that they
would right if they had gone to let's say like
a ba A or Wells to get a long term martgage.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
Oh wow, yeah, that's such a great option. I mean
to be able to do things like I buy a home.
So I think you may have addressed this, but I
want to make sure I wrap my head around it,
and even for the users who are watching listening, because
this is, you know, brand new to a lot of folks.
So let's say I have three bitcoin on coinbase, right,
and the value is like over three hundred thousand based

(12:34):
on market price. Right now, I take I want to
take a loan of one hundred and fifty thousand, which
would be an approximate to fifty percent. And because the
loan is open ended, I don't have to make monthly payments.
I just have to repay it at some point. But
let's say that I wait five years and it's twenty
thirty and bigcoin shoot shoots up to five hundred thousand dollars.

(12:56):
What happens in that scenario? Can I liquidate some of
the bitcoin or repaid the loan? Like, can I do
things like that? Yes?

Speaker 1 (13:05):
Absolutely, so you can repay the loan at any time.
Let's say, in the process of bitcoin rallying and increasing
in value, your loan to value will naturally be decreasing, right,
So technically, like if you did nothing, the health of
your loan in terms of just asset coverage, would just
be getting healthier and healthier, right, And at any point

(13:26):
in time, Let's just say, let's just say you had
USDC in your account and you wanted to pay down
the loan, You could do that. Let's just say you
wanted to basically use some of the bitcoin collateral to
pay down. We offer you the capability of withdrawing collateral
from your loan because let's say now your loan to
value is so low, right, you're feeling really good about

(13:46):
the health of your loan. You can withdraw some of
that bitcoin, and then you could decide to sell some
of it use those proceeds to pay down the loan.
So what you mentioned is entirely possible with the product
suite that we're offering today.

Speaker 2 (13:58):
Wow, and who dumb question? Who are the lenders here
and how are they able to do? The open ended term?

Speaker 1 (14:08):
Yeah, so the borrowing activity happens through our integration with Morpho,
So happens entirely on chain where coin Base is allowing
our users to access these really valuable on chain capabilities,
and essentially on chain, you know, there are Morpho vaults
and markets where you know, there is a facilitation of
borrowing and lending activity, right, So I guess we'll get

(14:31):
to at some point. But like there are platforms that
you know allow users to lend USDC, you know, including
coin Base, right, and those funds go towards facilitating also
the borrowing needs, right, but not in like a one
to one direct fashion, but all through the on chain
capabilities that you know Morpho provide.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
Is it like a application running on base?

Speaker 1 (14:53):
Morpho is on Base, Morpho is also on Ethereum and
other chains. Though, DeFi borrow and DeFi lend on coinbase
or on Morpho on base?

Speaker 2 (15:03):
Got it? Okay? Very cool? I love that and the
open ending endedness of it. Makes it unique because if
you are planning to be a long term holder of
bitcoiners another crypto asset, it just gives you the long
term horizon. And if we have the thesis that all
of this is going to continue to go up due

(15:24):
to different factors, this is a better way almost than
going to sell and you know, incurring capital gains, taxes
and much more.

Speaker 1 (15:34):
Yeah, I think a lot of users are finding it
that way. And of course in the end, I feel
like it's all about the configuration and optionality you provide
to users, right, some people do like that open endedness.
There are other users who you know, have a fixed
borrowing need in mind. So I think as this space
ultimately expands, there will be different configurations and optionality that

(15:54):
users increasingly have to serve their everyday borrowing and liquidity
it needs.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
Oh for sure. And what about expansion to other assets?
So you know, folks hold bitcoin, Salona, XRP, whatever it else, Right,
are you planning to add these expand to other assets?

Speaker 1 (16:12):
So from the outset when we announced and launched this product,
I think we stated that you know, we ultimately want
to maximally serve the borrowing and liquidity customer. Job so
you can expect that we're thinking about how to do that,
and expansion to other assets is of course like part
of the equation. So won't comment too much on our
exact plans. But ultimately, I think if you want to

(16:35):
serve people maximally on liquidity and borrowing, you know, you
want to serve them across you know, where they're at,
the different assets that they might hold.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
You may not be able to answer this question, but
you know, as you were talking about we were talking
about the home example of someone buying a house, does
it make sense for a coinbase to explore mortgages given
that you know you're doing this type of lending, maybe
you're able to offer or maybe not just the loans itself.
It's fine, I don't know, but maybe some sort of

(17:05):
mortgage product. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (17:07):
Yeah, I also won't comment too much though, once again,
I do think that it's under the same customer job,
right and for the same reasons. You know, a user
ultimately has a purchasing need, and you know a mortgage
is a form of that. So I would say today
we're really focused on, you know, sort of like the
goodness we have with the DEEPI borrow product, and there's

(17:28):
you know, a million different ways we can take this,
and if I take a step back, we're ultimately thinking
about our users' financial lives and how we can bring
financial services on chain serve them extremely well, you know,
across the very the various facets of that.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
Right.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
So I don't know if you if you kind of
extend the timeline long enough, there's like little that we
wouldn't consider doing. But once again, I'll kind of just
keep it more general as it pertains to our new
term clients.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
Oh for sure. Yeah, I mean I love the product.
I think that this is such a great idea, and
I've spoken to some other folks at Coinbase at the
coin Base summit. You know, I'm looking to do this.
I was waiting to see how the price a bitcoin
would move, but I think it's something I'm well, I
should say, I discussed with my wife. I haven't pulled
the trigger yet because you know, we're just trying to

(18:17):
decide certain plans as far as home home momp grades
or buying a larger home or things like that. But
this is a great option because man, I hate taxes
and I would hate to have to give up my
bitcoin in current taxes versus I can hold on to
it and get a long term alone like this to

(18:37):
do what I need to do.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
Yep, and smart move to get that approval before you
make the decision. But yes, I agree with you. And
then once again, like I think a user would be
thinking about the various alternatives they have, right, Like, you know,
folks are smart, They'll think about the cost of borrowing.
And we do believe that, you know, bitcoin back loans
are a really attractive way to to get that necessary liquidity,

(19:01):
particularly if you're already holding bitcoin as you are.

Speaker 2 (19:04):
Talk to us a bit about security and even is
there insurance you know, well, let's say something. I'm not
saying something will, but in the event that something may
have failed or it gets broken just temporarily, what happens
to the user's collateral?

Speaker 1 (19:19):
Yeah, so there there is no insurance program. And Coinbase
is ultimately you know, helping facilitate users accessing this really
valuable capability do the integration with Morpho from the ease
of the Coinbase app. So yeah, like you know, users
should of course like make their do their own research
and make that responsible decision on their end, you know,

(19:39):
of course, like Morpho on their end. They also have
their own security practices, et cetera. So there's a lot
of information you know, both online. I think something we
also serve up an app that users can of course
use to educate themselves.

Speaker 2 (19:52):
Got it. I wanted to ask about some other big
news around Coinbase, and most recently was the announcement of
the Samsung partner ship, which is huge. Tell us about that,
and you know, what's the vision here?

Speaker 1 (20:05):
So we ultimately want to you know, allow users to
as many people in the world really to use crypto
to further their financial lives. And you know, through that,
one of the strategies is to partner with platforms to
distribute Coinbase and the various services that we offer. So
in the case of Samsung, we're offering seventy five million

(20:27):
plus Samsung Galaxy users in the US free access to
our membership program Coinbase one to bring them on board.
And you know, through that partnership, we'll also bring crypto
access to a lot of people where they already are
right through the device that they use every day and
Coinbase one. Just because like I'm not sure if everyone

(20:47):
knows what that is. It's basically our membership program that
provides a suite of benefits, right, zero trading fees, you know,
boosted USDC reward rates, boosted staking rates. We've also rolled
out the coin Base one one card recently that allows
you to earn up to four percent back in bitcoin
on your everyday spend. There's account protection, so there's more

(21:08):
features actually at this point than I can really kind
of like name in a concise way. But I think
the whole point is to not only introduce people to crypto,
but also introduce them to a membership that maximizes the
way that they can use crypto in their everyday lives
as well as grow their money right and their their assets.
And so you know, with Samsung, they are going to

(21:30):
be distributing this membership, providing you know, Samsung users with
the ability to quickly come on board and then also
get the best of what coin base offers.

Speaker 2 (21:40):
That's really great. It's such a such a huge on ramp.
I am a coin Base one used subscriber, if you
want to call it that, and I do have a
Samsung phone. I'm on the Android side, so looking forward
to testing out that integration. That's really great. And I know, Ben,
you probably can't answer this but I'm assuming you're going
to be knocking on Apple's door to do this as

(22:03):
well with them.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
No comment on that coin Based one member. Hopefully you've
gotten the coin based one card. If not, you should
also order that.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
Yeah, I need to order that. I've been so busy
that I haven't even like got a chance to think.
I knew, I know of it, right, and I saw
the announcement and everything. But I think I'm gonna try
to do that this quarter as things settle down a bit.
I'm not traveling as much. And then there was also
some really great news about Staking in New York. I
know there's a lot of people in New York who
have been frustrated with not having access to certain services

(22:38):
across the board, right, not just Coinbase, but I tried
to remind people like, there's this thing called the bit
license unfortunately, and much more in a very strict NYDFS
tell us about the launch of staking for different assets there.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
Yeah, so obviously, you know, we have a ton of
valued users in New York. And before we even get
the staking, Coinbase one card is also now available in
New York, so we're very much pushing into just like
allowing our users in New York to access all of
the tools that we provide to further their their every
day financial life. So staking is obviously a huge win

(23:13):
for consumers in New York and just economic freedom more generally.
So staking empowers our users to unlock financial freedom by
part partaking in the crypto economy earning rewards on their
stakable crypto assets. Right, so New Yorkers can now essentially
sign up for coinbase if they don't already have it,

(23:33):
or if they do, they can have their assets staked,
you know, within seconds. Right, just go into the coin
based experience. You can steak Eating and steak Solona, a
host of other assets. And we applaud New York for
embracing the future of finance and supporting economic opportunities for citizens.
And I think there's an example, This is an example

(23:54):
that a lot of other states that don't currently allow
steaking can hopefully also follow so that they where users
can also once again maximize their optionality and how they
want to manage and grow their finances.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
Yeah, that's such a great thing. And I love the
staking aspects of some of these blockchains proof mistake and
being able to earn these passive rewards right for being
a participant on the network, and like to your point,
hopefully other states follow and then this has opened up
to more people as it should be. Yeah. Absolutely, Now

(24:27):
you guys are doing a lot obviously, what else is
on your roadmap that you can share? So, I mean,
if you've been following coinbase, you will hear that. You
will have heard that we're working on delivering that everything exchange,
so being the place where users can trade and invest
in all assets, right, whether that's you know, across crypto,

(24:48):
across decks assets which we recently rolled out to all
of our users, you know, and as well as the
cross equities, prediction markets and a host of others. So
that is definitely one theme where the company is pushing
forward on, you know, just really giving our users maximum
access to all the ways that they can in their
everyday lives, you know, trade, invest and grow their money.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
That's one theme. And then if you take a step back,
one big focus of ours is really to just help
people grow their money, you know, in the best way
that they can. So in addition to trading trading a
host of assets, once we've rolled out a number of
those features, you know, you can stake right you can
hold USDC and earn rewards. And then we obviously rolled

(25:29):
out DeFi lend, where a user can I think currently
at the moment you can earn about eight and a
half percent on your USDC by similar lending it to
on chain, right, and then outside of that, I would say,
you know, the Coinbase one card. It is a mechanism
for us to start serving your everyday relationship, right whether
you're out buying groceries, you're hopping on the subway, or

(25:52):
anything else. So I think there's one big theme around
helping your users grow their money across trading, investing, and
even just deploying their ass sets and even spending right
in their everyday lives. And then outside of that, you know,
we rolled out the pay tab that allows people to
send money instantly and for free, you know, anywhere in
the world, and they can send USDC, they can send

(26:12):
crypto assets, so you can see this this also this
host of sort of like different uses of money in
one's everyday life that are starting to emerge, right, and
DeFi borrow is obviously sort of at the intersection of
that where you may have traded or bought bitcoin or
you know, and then you want to get liquidity from it, right,
that liquidity, that money maybe you know, you use it

(26:33):
directly on Coinbase, right, or maybe some people you know
withdraw that money to you know, another institution and conduct
their needs there. So yeah, I would say those are
some of the themes of things that we are working on.
And and Coinbase one obviously is a super charger across
all of that.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
Oh absolutely. And you know, I love Coinbase's mission to
create a super app and you know, kind of all
in one where you have all these features and like
you said, like helping people to grow their wealth and
do their finances and so forth. And from one point
of view, you know, I see it as just a
great disruption of the existing banking setup and being able

(27:12):
to offer people more in a more decentralized way and
not the traditional model where they give you like next
to nothing in your checking and savings account and you
can put your money to work. Right, It's more free,
more accessible. So I love that mission, and it seems
like the puck is heading that direction. Everybody's trying on
that same path, trying to disrupt the traditional finance world.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
Yeah, I mean, much more to come on this front,
and ultimately We don't really think about being a quote
unquote super app just for the sake of it. I
think the ultimate goal is really to just serve different
customer jobs in a really great and differentiated way. Right.
If you do that across enough things, then yes, a
user might be using you for multiple things in their

(27:56):
financial life, right, and you know, and thereby you may
be a quote quote super app in their eyes. But
I think that's quite different from you know, a lot
of you know a lot of attempts where you see
people just want to be a super app or a
certain business model, right you call it a neobank or
whatever else, just for the sake of it, and you
kind of just want to roll out the sort of

(28:16):
you know, sort of copy and paste suite of features
in order to accomplish that goal, which is a little
backwards from my perspective.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
Yeah, for sure, you know, what are your thoughts on
how and you worked at some of the tradify companies,
but all of them now coming in banks capitulating obviously
you got Blackrock Fidelity, all these folks. Black Rock works
with Coinbase, of course, but just recently, I mean even
Today's City Bank announced they're going to launch crypto custody
next year, and it's just amazing what's happening. They're all

(28:46):
the institutional herd just coming in today's asset class.

Speaker 1 (28:49):
I think a lot of people are just recognizing that
crypto and on chain economy is a really you know,
emergent and powerful way to serve their users, right and
by virtue of that, you know, a lot of them
are thinking about how they can use crypto to you know,
further the services they provide and in many cases partnering
with Coinbase as you mentioned, right, Like we partner with

(29:12):
the black rocks of the world with a lot of
different institutions. So yeah, Like I think, as I mentioned
at the start of this call, there's definitely a bit
of a convergence of sort of like financial services or
what used to be sort of deemed as tradify or
like traditional non crypto fintech, as well as as well
as say the crypto space, right, and a lot of

(29:32):
people are recognizing that ultimately cryptos for all the tools
are powerful and within it of course, like you know,
Coinbase wants to build you know, the best and most
cohesive services for our users while also partnering and empowering
other platforms to do the same.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
And on that note, we've seen a lot of digital
acid treasury companies on the rise, buying crypto assets putting
on their balance sheet. You know, Michael Sailors Strategy started
his whole trend. What are your thoughts on that and
are some of these folks working with coin bates to
like buy the assets, custody the assets and so forth.

Speaker 1 (30:04):
Yeah, So separate from just like dedicated digital asset treasury companies, right,
there are certainly just a lot of corporations that are
increasingly looking for ways to deploy capital more effectively without
sacrificing speed, security or market access. Right. So, you know,
we're seeing also corporate treasuries are under pressure to hedge

(30:25):
against inflation or generate yield on their treasury assets, right.
You know, coinbase is definitely empowering that and partnering with
a lot of platforms that are looking to use crypto
more in their everyday sort of like company functions. And
you know, of course within that there's also let's say,
the strategies of the world and actually more pure played
digital asset treasury companies. But I just want to call

(30:46):
out that it's actually much more broad than that if
you look at, you know, the various companies that are
starting to think about where the role crypto might play
in their overall treasury management and allocation.

Speaker 2 (30:58):
Yeah, it's just interesting to see all these folks getting
involved in crypto. It's fascinating. I'm excited for the future,
especially as you know, we get even more clarity in
the market from the government around crypto legislation and much more.
What are your thoughts on the tokenization market. A lot
of these firms looking to put a lot of different
things on the blockchain, whether it be stocks, gold, and

(31:18):
other assets.

Speaker 1 (31:19):
I think ultimately, the on chain economy is one that
people are viewing as increasingly powerful, and by tokenizing different
assets you have access to it, right, you can start
to empower different things, you know, borrowing, lending in different
use cases. So, you know, coinbase ultimately will be continuing
to push on this front, you know, whether that's tokenized equities,

(31:41):
real world assets, derivatives, prediction markets, et cetera. We are
working towards a cryptonative launch of tokenized equities as part
of our broader strategy, and we think the total addressable
market for you know, equities as well as obviously just
tokenized assets is huge, right, so we're seeing the tip
of iceberg on it. We aremitted to being on the
frontier of it and doing it the right way with

(32:03):
deep tech, you know, the right regulatory investments, etc. And
you know, on chain borrowing and lending our examples of
that right while you know what you've seen borrowing against
bitcoin is collateral as well as lending out USDC to
earn enhanced rewards. Those are a couple examples where you
know assets have been tokenized and sort of like facilitating

(32:25):
different use cases and debts trading, which we've rolled out
to all our users as of this month. But that's
another example where you know, people are getting access to
a ton more assets for their everyday trading and investing needs.
So we're really excited to see how the DeFi mullet
as we call it, can expand our product suite and
really turn coinbase into the premier financial services platform for

(32:46):
everyday use and I think tokenization plays a meaningful role
in that overall picture.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
Yeah, it would just open up so many new opportunities
for these traditional assets. And you know, we started the
conversation talking about crypto back loans that maybe eventually I
think you hinted to it that if I have a
lot of tokenized assets and you, depending on what they are,
they could be put to work where I can borrow
against them and things like that. Right, Yep, absolutely awesome, Ben,

(33:15):
great stuff. I got some wrap up questions here for you. First,
if you could create your own metaverse, what would the
theme be?

Speaker 1 (33:21):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (33:22):
Interesting?

Speaker 1 (33:24):
Yeah, I was part of the cohort that actually played
around Second Life back in the day. Felt like that
was like a metaverse before some of the metaverse hype.
I guess there's a lot of craziness across all kinds
of metaverses. If I think about it, I would love
something that's quite calming and therapeutic, right, maybe the use
of like certain modalities for like whether it's vr AR,

(33:47):
some type of metaverse where you actually go to like
you know, enjoy like just like relaxing sort of like
a sensory like spa like head of environment. I don't know,
I'm kind of just thinking off top, but that's something
that I think could actually quite interesting in addition to
all of the meta verses where you like create, create, create,
and you like, you know, have this like sensory overload.

Speaker 2 (34:09):
Yeah, I'm with you because recently I've been on a
meditation journey where trying to meditate more, especially like you know,
having a busy day and interviewing people and talking all
day and just like being able to get quiet time meditate,
but like having a metaverse where I can immerse myself
in that that would be great. So I'm with you.

Speaker 1 (34:28):
Yeah, a calm or one of those platforms should probably
build that.

Speaker 2 (34:32):
Yeah, for sure. Rapid fire questions. Favorite food I see
sushi is probably up there in Japanese food generally. Favorite
musician or band Red Hot Schilip Peppers. Favorite movie Memento
by Chris Nolan. I remember that. That's That's one of
those movies you can't really forget.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
Favorite book nineteen eighty four Georgia orwell maybe Animal Farm
quite I like the George or Well books.

Speaker 2 (35:02):
And when you're not working at coinbase, what are you
doing for fun?

Speaker 1 (35:05):
I love to just find like water out in nature,
So it could be a water hole, could be the beach.
Obviously here in Norcall, we'll just drive up to Bodega Bay,
or let's just Sonoma Coast with the family and just
enjoy a day out in the sun and kind of
like the kind of wild coast of that, or maybe

(35:25):
drive even further up to let's say, see Ranch or Mendocino.
So yeah, that's sort of been the theme of my
summer and whether that's there or you know, Tahoe or
wherever else.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
Very cool, Ben, Thank you so much for your time.
I love what coinbase is doing, love the products, and
you know, maybe we'll have to have you back on
as you guys launched some cool new things and we'll
talk about it. But thank you so much for joining me.
Great to be here.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
Thanks Teddy,

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