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Beyond the Deposit Debate

Why Stablecoins Complement Banks and Strengthen the Dollar

Research shows that stablecoins do not undermine lending, but rather expand the financial ecosystem and reinforce the US dollar. Critically, and as recognized by stablecoin legislation, they offer an opportunity to modernize the domestic payment system by freeing consumers from the hidden subsidies embedded in swipe fees and foregone interest from low-yield checking accounts—if policymakers embrace rather than resist innovation.

September 15, 2025; 8 minutes read time

Explaining key concepts and policy perspectives in crypto and blockchain.

September 27, 2025

What are Gas Fees?

Gas fees play a central role in everyday interactions with decentralized networks. These transaction costs, which fluctuate with network demand, not only influence the affordability of everyday use but also shape innovation in scaling solutions. By driving the development of more efficient architectures and fee-optimization tools, gas fees play a big role in shaping blockchains' affordability and sustainability across finance, gaming, and beyond.

September 16, 2025

Building the EU's Onchain Capital Markets

Tokenisation offers the EU a strategic opportunity to re-architect its capital markets around open, permissionless, and programmable systems delivering faster settlement, lower costs, greater transparency, enhanced resilience, and broader investor access.

September 16, 2025

What are Oracles?

As blockchain systems mature, oracles can serve as key bridges between digital networks and external data. By enabling smart contracts to securely access information like prices, government data, or even the weather, oracles help expand blockchain technology’s potential to power finance, supply chains, insurance, and more.

September 8, 2025

Crypto and Suitability

As digital assets become more integrated into finance, suitability standards must evolve beyond legacy frameworks. Policymakers have the opportunity to modernize consumer protections that reflect peer-to-peer transactions, programmable tools, and user control—ensuring safety while supporting innovation in decentralized markets.

September 7, 2025

Crypto and Payments

Crypto streamlines payments by enabling faster, cheaper, and borderless transactions, reducing reliance on intermediaries and unlocking more inclusive, efficient, and resilient financial networks.

August 27, 2025

How zero-knowledge proofs can bring the Bank Secrecy Act into the digital age

ZKPs can preserve the integrity of financial compliance while dramatically improving privacy, efficiency, and security.

August 26, 2025

What is Staking?

Staking allows users to actively support blockchain security and efficiency while earning rewards, creating a more participatory and sustainable financial ecosystem.

August 19, 2025

What is a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve?

Similar to how countries hold gold or foreign currencies to stabilize their economies and protect against shocks, a strategic bitcoin reserve involves intentionally holding bitcoin as a hedge against inflation, currency risk, or geopolitical uncertainty.

August 18, 2025

Fact-Finding: Crypto & Consumer Protection

User-friendly platforms and clear regulations for crypto and blockchain technology can enhance consumer protection by making digital assets safer and more accessible for everyone. With every transaction recorded on a secure, immutable ledger, the blockchain can also help law enforcement trace fraud and hold bad actors accountable.

August 14, 2025

The Rise of Stablecoin Remittances: Insights from Coinbase Data

We examine Coinbase data and find that among crypto transfers that are possible remittances, stablecoins are playing an ever greater role, particularly over the last three years.

August 14, 2025

Fact-Finding: Crypto & Americans

In the U.S., crypto owners represent a diverse range of backgrounds and political affiliations—and these Americans call for clearer digital asset regulations that foster innovation and enhance consumer protection.

August 14, 2025

Fact-Finding: Crypto & Energy

Crypto and blockchain technology can advance sustainable finance by incentivizing renewable energy projects, harnessing excess energy, and supporting job creation.

August 8, 2025

MiCA 2.0 Explainer: Safeguarding Innovation in DeFi and Stablecoins

Coinbase outlines policy priorities for the EU’s MiCA review, urging proportionate rules for DeFi, optional smart contract certification, multi-issuer stablecoins, and reassessing the ban on interest-bearing stablecoins.

July 31, 2025

U.S. Embraces Crypto: A Landmark Moment in Policy from the White House

The White House’s Digital Assets Report marks a landmark moment that affirms crypto as a cornerstone of the next era of finance. This report is the most forward-looking crypto policy framework in U.S. history and offers a roadmap for thoughtful digital asset integration both at home and abroad.

July 30, 2025

Community Banks Should Embrace Stablecoins, Not Fear Them

Stablecoins present an opportunity for community banks and other small banks, and a recent study found that they are not a significant threat to bank deposits.

July 29, 2025

Fact-Finding: Crypto & Illicit Finance

Crypto and blockchain can enhance financial security through transparent, traceable systems that support law enforcement and help detect illicit activity—functioning within established regulatory frameworks that continue to evolve alongside the technology.

July 29, 2025

What is Composability?

Composability is a defining feature of crypto and DeFi ecosystems, enabling developers to combine and build on existing protocols like digital building blocks. This modularity accelerates innovation, reduces duplication, and fosters an open-source economy where tools and applications evolve rapidly—driving more efficient, user-centric financial systems that scale with demand.

July 22, 2025

Fact-Finding: Crypto & Financial Inclusion

Crypto and blockchain are driving financial inclusion by empowering unbanked and underbanked Americans with accessible financial tools.

July 22, 2025

What are Permissionless Networks?

Permissionless networks are the foundation of open, interoperable digital economies. Because anyone can access, build on, or transact within these systems without needing approval, they create a level playing field for innovation and participation. This openness unlocks real-time settlement, automated execution through smart contracts, and seamless value transfer across borders, platforms, and communities.

July 21, 2025

Modernizing the EU Retail Investor Experience

Coinbase’s response to ESMA highlights how MiFID II should be updated for a digital-first era—simplifying disclosures, enabling direct access, and recognizing blockchain infrastructure.

July 17, 2025

Fact-Finding: Crypto & Real-World Use Cases

Crypto and blockchain power real-world solutions—making finance more accessible, data more transparent, and services more efficient across industries like healthcare, government, and beyond.

July 10, 2025

What are Self-Hosted Wallets?

Self-hosted wallets are natively onchain tools that allow individuals and institutions to securely store and manage their digital assets without relying on intermediaries. They enable direct access to tokens, identity credentials, and smart contract interactions, supporting financial sovereignty, privacy, and portability across decentralized networks. For policymakers, recognizing and preserving the right to self-custody is essential to ensuring open, secure, and inclusive participation in the digital economy.

June 27, 2025

Crypto and Agentic AI

Crypto and blockchain technologies can help enable agentic AI systems to operate autonomously and securely. As natively onchain tools, digital assets support real-time transactions, programmable incentives, and interoperability. This synergy unlocks new models of decentralized coordination, where intelligent agents can transact, enforce rules, and contribute to digital ecosystems without central intermediaries.

June 23, 2025

What is "Digitally Native?"

In a blockchain-based economy, digitally native assets are not simply digital versions of traditional instruments—they are born and function onchain. This fundamental distinction enables properties like real-time settlement, programmability, and composability, offering transformative potential for how value is created, exchanged, and governed in digital systems.

June 22, 2025

Crypto and Housing

Crypto and blockchain technologies offer the housing sector powerful tools to increase security, transparency, and efficiency. By digitizing property records, streamlining mortgage processes, and enabling new forms of financing, these innovations can reduce costs, minimize fraud, and expand access to homeownership.

June 6, 2025

Crypto and Healthcare

Crypto and blockchain technologies offer healthcare systems new tools to operate more securely, transparently, and efficiently. From streamlining patient record management to securing supply chains and modernizing billing and payments, these innovations can improve care delivery and reduce administrative costs.

May 30, 2025

Crypto and Local Government

Crypto and blockchain technologies offer local governments new tools to operate more transparently and efficiently. By modernizing payments, improving recordkeeping, and fostering economic participation, crypto can help local governments better serve their communities.

May 21, 2025

Crypto and Small Business

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are the backbone of our economy, but they often face significant barriers to securing financial success and global reach. Crypto and blockchain technology offer tools that can enable faster, cheaper, and more inclusive financial infrastructure, empowering small businesses to compete in a global, digital economy.

May 14, 2025

Blockchain and Gaming

Blockchain-based gaming leverages crypto technology to create open, player-owned economies where users can truly own in-game assets, earn rewards, and participate in decentralized virtual worlds—offering more transparent, interoperable, and community-driven alternatives to traditional gaming platforms.

May 6, 2025

Blockchain and Supply Chain

Blockchain technology can transform supply chain management by creating a transparent, tamper-proof system that not only streamlines operations but also fosters accountability and trust among participants.

April 28, 2025

Crypto and Humanitarian Aid

Delivering humanitarian aid is a complex challenge, particularly in conflict zones, disaster areas, or regions with weak financial infrastructure. But crypto can help by enabling organizations to deliver funds directly to recipients – faster, more securely, and with greater accountability.

April 27, 2025

Crypto and Remittances

Remittances are a vital lifeline for millions around the world, but face high fees and delays. Crypto and blockchain technology offer a faster, cheaper alternative to traditional remittance channels, transforming how money moves globally.

April 17, 2025

Crypto and Financial Inclusion

Crypto and blockchain technology can dramatically expand financial inclusion by providing secure, low-cost access to money and financial services for billions who are unbanked or underserved.

April 17, 2025

Updating the FSB Global Regulatory Framework for Digital Assets

In Coinbase’s recent response to the Financial Stability Board’s peer review, we urge the FSB to revisit the global regulatory framework for digital assets it set forth in 2023, recognizing the ongoing global shift toward a more supportive and innovative regulatory approach.

April 7, 2025

Crypto Mining and Energy

Crypto mining plays a critical role in securing decentralized networks, and is increasingly integrating renewable power sources and driving innovation in carbon tracking and energy efficiency—offering new tools for sustainable infrastructure.

April 1, 2025

Crypto and National Security

Crypto and blockchain technology are not just financial innovations, but key to economic security and geopolitical stability. By advancing clear rules for digital assets, US policymakers and regulators will help ensure that crypto innovation remains aligned with democratic values and our national interests.

March 25, 2025

What are Memecoins?

The rise of memecoins showcases the power of online communities and blockchain technology to create new forms of digital value and foster innovation, while their speculative nature means that participants should approach them with a clear understanding of the risks involved.

March 19, 2025

Crypto and AI

The intersection of crypto, blockchain technology, and AI can create more secure, efficient, and decentralized systems by enabling trustless transactions, transparent and immutable data management, and intelligent automation, driving innovation across finance, governance, and digital economies.

March 10, 2025

What is Decentralized Physical Infrastructure?

Decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePINs) use blockchain technology to coordinate and incentivize the development of real-world infrastructure, enabling more efficient, transparent, and community-driven alternatives to traditional, centralized systems.

March 7, 2025

Unlocking the Full Potential of European Capital Markets

In Coinbase’s recent response to the European Commission’s call for evidence on the European Savings and Investment Union, we outline key recommendations that will help unlock the transformative effects of crypto and blockchain technologies.

March 4, 2025

What are DAOs?

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are blockchain-based entities governed by smart contracts and collective decision-making, enabling transparent, efficient, and community-driven management of resources and projects without reliance on traditional hierarchies.

February 25, 2025

What is Decentralized Social Media?

Decentralized social media leverages blockchain technology to create open networks where users can control their data, interact across platforms, and access new economic opportunities without relying on centralized intermediaries.

February 12, 2025

What are Stablecoins?

Stablecoins are blockchain-based digital assets designed to maintain price stability, offering a reliable medium of exchange for payments, remittances, decentralized finance, and cross-border transactions.

February 4, 2025

What is a Smart Contract?

Smart contracts are self-executing programs on the blockchain that provide secure, transparent, and efficient solutions for payments, logistics, gaming, and more.

January 27, 2025

What are Layer 2 Blockchains?

Layer 2 blockchains help make blockchain transactions faster and more efficient, making decentralized apps for activities like shopping, gaming, and managing finances more practical for everyday use.

January 22, 2025

What is a Crypto Wallet?

Crypto wallets enable users to securely send and receive crypto, and also serve as the gateway to onchain experiences, where users can interact with thousands of decentralized apps in finance, gaming, the creative arts, and more.

December 19, 2024

What is Decentralized ID?

Decentralized ID (DiD) is a groundbreaking innovation that uses blockchain technology to bring more privacy, security, and control to our identities.

December 10, 2024

What is Tokenization?

Tokenization creates digital versions of real-world assets like cash, art, or real estate on blockchains, enabling faster, cost-efficient, and transparent transactions while enhancing liquidity, reducing risks, and minimizing reliance on intermediaries.

November 21, 2024

Crypto and Creators

Whether it’s artists, musicians, writers, or developers, blockchain and crypto offer new ways to monetize, distribute, and protect creative work that are already redefining the creator economy.

November 14, 2024

Detecting and Avoiding Scams

Users can protect themselves from common scams by staying vigilant and following these simple steps.

November 7, 2024

Crypto and Privacy

As we move from an online to onchain world, crypto and blockchain technology offer solutions that empower individuals to protect their privacy while transacting, creating, and communicating digitally.

October 25, 2024

What is DeFi?

With DeFi, you can do most of the things that traditional financial (TradFi) service providers support—earn interest, borrow, lend, buy insurance, trade derivatives, trade assets, and more—but it’s faster and doesn’t require paperwork or a third party.

October 18, 2024

What is a Blockchain?

Blockchain is a revolutionary technology that serves as the backbone for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. At its core, a blockchain is a decentralized and distributed digital ledger that records transactions in a secure, transparent, and immutable manner.

October 18, 2024

What is Crypto?

At its core, cryptocurrency is decentralized digital money, designed to be used over the internet. Bitcoin, launched in 2008, was the first cryptocurrency and remains the most widely known and influential.