Coinbase is relaunching its Stablecoin Bootstrap Fund first introduced in 2019 to boost the liquidity of the stablecoin USDC in a range of popular and emerging decentralized finance protocols.
Coinbase said on Tuesday its first placements will provide USDC (USDC) liquidity into Ethereum-based lenders Aave and Morpho, and Solana-based trading platforms Kamino and Jupiter.
“As we scale the fund over time and distribute liquidity across more protocols and stablecoins, we’re particularly eager to collaborate with pre-launch teams or those seeking to drive stablecoin growth from day one,” it added.
The deployments will be managed by Coinbase Asset Management and are designed to ensure users can “access reliable rates across mature and emerging protocols,” Coinbase said.
Coinbase did not disclose the size of the fund. Cointelegraph contacted Coinbase for comment.
Coinbase helped create USDC alongside its issuer, Circle Internet Group, but is still key to its ecosystem. Tether (USDT) dominates stablecoin volume across the crypto ecosystem, with an over $100 billion lead on USDC’s market capitalization, and Coinbase’s bid to boost USDC’s liquidity in DeFi could attract more crypto traders and borrowers to the token.
Total value locked in DeFi protocols currently sits at $165.4 billion, led by Aave and Ether (ETH) liquid staking protocol Lido at $41 billion and $40.8 billion, DeFiLlama data shows.
Blue chip DeFi protocols benefit from Coinbase’s first fund
The revival of Coinbase Stablecoin Bootstrap Fund comes six years after it was first introduced in September 2019 to assist Ethereum-based DeFi protocols such as Uniswap, Compound and dYdX with USDC liquidity.
The first of those funds deployed $1 million each to Compound and dYdX, which helped pave the way for USDC to grow into a popular stablecoin in DeFi after only launching a year earlier.
USDC now holds a market cap of $65.6 billion, trailing USDT at $164.6 billion, CoinGecko data shows.
Like most stablecoins, USDC is supported on several blockchains, including Ethereum, Base, Solana, Polygon, Aptos, Avalanche and Sui.
Coinbase’s total revenue down, but stablecoin revenue up
It comes as Coinbase reported $1.5 billion in revenue for the second quarter, falling short of industry expectations of $1.56 billion to $1.59 billion.
Related: Coinbase partners with Perplexity AI for real-time crypto prices
However, while revenue fell 26% from the previous quarter, its stablecoin-related revenue — primarily through USDC — rose 12% to $332 million.
Coinbase aims to be an “everything app”
Coinbase is aiming to launch a “super app” after rebranding its Coinbase Wallet to “Base app” on July 16, which the exchange said was to evolve it “from a wallet into an everything app that brings together social, apps, chat, payments, and trading.”
The app will aim to “expand economic freedom, creativity, and innovation,” Head of product for Base app, John Granata, said, adding that it could be a starting point for a new kind of social network.
The app is still in the beta stage.
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