Coinbase has hinted towards decentralized finance (DeFi) apps integration on its platform. The crypto exchange had previously made its interest in the space known and has provided support for various DeFi protocol tokens in the past. However, this would be the first time that the exchange is definitely looking into bringing decentralized finance services to the platform.
With approximately 73 million registered users, Coinbase would be opening up the market to a much broader scope of investors. Chief Financial Officer made mention of the plans during a Citi event held on Monday. CFO Alesia Haas made comments that suggest that the crypto exchange is looking to expand its offerings to include the fast-growing DeFi space.
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Launching Crypto As An App
One interesting thing that Haas made mention of during the event was Coinbase’s move into offering a crypto as an app platform. According to him, this is what would enable the crypto exchange to serve the broader crypto ecosystem. It would seem that Coinbase is set on making novel strides in the market, just as it had when it became the first publicly traded crypto exchange.
The plan, as Haas put it, was to have third-party DeFi apps inside the main product offering where a user would be able to choose if they want to use the Coinbase product or a third-party app. This way, both would exist on the same platform but operate differently.
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“We plan eventually to service third-party apps inside our main product and so that we’re going to be agnostic between a customer choosing a Coinbase product or a third-party DeFi product,” said Haas. “We want to introduce and find the best product for our customers.”
Coinbase’s integration of third-party DeFi apps would facilitate a meeting point of the centralized and the decentralized.
Creating A Bridge For DeFi
Coinbase is aiming to create a bridge to the DeFi market. Trust is still a big part of interacting with DeFi protocols but with a trusted name like Coinbase providing a bridge to these protocols, investors will be more inclined to participate in the space, facilitating more adoption going forward. Making an easy-to-use product that bridges the DeFi space, Coinbase believes it “can bring billions of users to DeFi”, adding that “we believe that Coinbase and DeFi can and will successfully grow and coexist.”
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Haas did not provide a timeline for when this might happen. However, the CFO’s comments show how committed the crypto exchange is to the project.
“As a crypto as an app platform, we’ll help DeFi in two ways. One, we’re building tools to accelerate the builders in the ecosystem through Coinbase Cloud. We believe this opportunity itself will be large in the future because more and more companies are going to want to offer crypto services to their end customers.”
Featured image from Cryptoknowmics, chart from TradingView.com