Crypto exchanges have morphed from commonplace buying and selling apps, to singular platforms encompassing funds, embedded infrastructure providers, and lending.
Ben Shen, Senior Product Director at Coinbase, spoke to Fee Professional about its bid to turn out to be the “all the pieces alternate”.
Three years in the past, the crypto business discovered itself within the wilderness, dealing with one of the vital determined and difficult durations of its quick historical past.
The collapses of FTX and TerraLuna in 2022 triggered a crypto winter in contrast to any earlier than, sounding alarm bells for governments and policymakers and, maybe most significantly, for crypto leaders themselves.
Because the sector get better, conventional finance watched with a way of vindication, having lengthy warned of the dangers. Policymakers and regulators continuously labelled the sector the “Wild West”, the place crypto cowboys operated with little oversight and on their very own phrases.
But the 2022/23 downturn proved to be a turning level. The regulatory scrutiny that adopted – as soon as seen as a risk to an business constructed on independence from conventional finance and intermediaries – could in the end have been its saving grace.
In the present day, nations such because the US, the United Arab Emirates and Argentina have emerged as centres of crypto adoption and innovation. Clearer regulatory frameworks are taking form, offering transparency for each new entrants and established gamers, whereas real-world fee use circumstances have expanded greater than at any time since Bitcoin’s launch in 2008.
For Ben Shen, Senior Product Director at Coinbase, his journey into decentralised finance (DeFi) started throughout his time at CashApp the place he had a revelation: the way forward for cash and funds was quickly being deployed on blockchains.
“Personally, I began to discover and put money into totally different belongings, primarily enjoying round with DeFi and I noticed this development the place cash is more and more shifting on-chain and crypto is kind of empowering all of this,” Shen tells Fee Professional.
“It’s the best way cash and monetary providers are shifting proper now; interoperable, quicker, cheaper.”
On-chain cash: extra rewarding?
Conventional fee methods have made regular progress in bettering settlement occasions, notably in B2B transactions. Within the US, rails corresponding to ACH and FedNow have accelerated transfers, whereas within the UK, Bacs usually settles funds inside one to 3 enterprise days.
Card networks have additionally moved to hurry issues up. Visa and Mastercard, for instance, launched Visa Direct and Mastercard Ship to allow quicker payouts, usually settling inside 48 hours.
Nonetheless, on-chain funds purpose to go a step additional. Blockchain-based transfers can settle near-instantly, whereas additionally providing programmability and transparency that conventional rails can not simply replicate.
In October 2025, Coinbase rolled out the Coinbase One Card to all eligible customers. The cardboard, tied to its Coinbase One subscription service, provides incentives corresponding to 4% cashback in Bitcoin on each buy. Shen notes the typical month-to-month spending on the Coinbase One Card sits at round $3,000 per buyer.
“The worth proposition of incomes as much as 4% in Bitcoin on on a regular basis spending is one which may be very extremely resonant. It additionally primarily means that you can simply have a way more easy and rewarding rewards program, versus factors,” says Shen.
Within the conventional area, JP Morgan provides 1% cashback on its Chase UK playing cards and as much as 5 factors again on groceries with its Chase Sapphire playing cards. Financial institution of America opts for cashback on chosen classes, corresponding to 3% again on gasoline at a minimal of $2,500 spent per 30 days. Shen argues the direct 4% Bitcoin cashback is a higher proposition worth to prospects believing the factors system is “successfully a type of inflation”.
“Oftentimes, you could bear in mind to make use of (factors) and redeem them. It’s continually altering. It’s successfully a type of inflation and there are blackout dates and your factors would possibly expire.
“We actually needed to lean into simplicity, flexibility and the rewarding facets of Bitcoin and have this program based mostly on the belongings you maintain.”
However holding Bitcoin after all comes with its personal pitfalls. There isn’t a telling when the value could spike or decline; its valuation has dropped from $87,508 in the beginning of 2026, to as little as $62,704 on February 6, based on Coinmarketcap.
Embedded finance vs stablecoins-as-a-service
Crypto’s extra ‘secure’ offshoot, stablecoins, have seen a serious surge in utilization and disruption that conventional gamers can’t ignore. Artemis Analytics revealed in a January 2025 report that world stablecoin funds elevated by 72% to $33bn final yr, based on knowledge collected by 11 crypto firms.
USDC and USDT had been unsurprisingly the overwhelming most popular stablecoins for funds, however maybe extra surprisingly was B2B funds being the preferred technique versus peer-to-peer funds. As companies search for quicker methods to ship and obtain funds, notably throughout borders, the place stablecoins have emerged as a near-instant and cost-effective possibility, the supporting infrastructure should evolve on the identical tempo to allow seamless adoption.
That is the place DeFi has taken a cue from conventional finance, creating embedded finance options corresponding to stablecoin-as-a-service (SaaS). Beneath this mannequin, suppliers provide the technical experience and infrastructure, permitting retailers to entry the advantages of stablecoins with out having to construct and combine the methods themselves.
In December 2025, Coinbase launched its personal SaaS providing, designed to assist companions “profit from the dimensions and leverage the USDC ecosystem”. The product allows companies not solely to combine stablecoin funds extra simply, but additionally to create their very own customisable stablecoins tailor-made to particular fee use circumstances.
“It brings the facility of that ecosystem to then distribute at scale the stablecoin with the added layer of customisability,” explains Shen.
“The use circumstances for funds are fairly broad,” says Shen. “On service provider funds, our developer group is empowering the acceptance of stablecoins at numerous service provider companions, for the likes of Shopify. There are numerous contours to stablecoins. While you maintain USDC, for instance, there may be a capability to earn yield and have the ability to lend it.”
Whereas the difficulty of interest-bearing stablecoins continues to divide banks and crypto companies, it is usually opening the door for crypto firms to offer prospects with an alternative choice to conventional financial savings and lending merchandise.
Loans the subsequent a part of crypto banking’s evolution
Curiosity earnings, whether or not generated from loans or held deposits, has been considered one of banks’ core income streams for many years. Now, crypto firms corresponding to Coinbase are placing their very own spin on that mannequin.
Crypto lending permits people and companies to unlock liquidity from their digital belongings with out promoting them outright. Sometimes, debtors pledge cryptocurrencies or stablecoins as collateral to safe a mortgage, with phrases structured round a loan-to-value (LTV) ratio. The mortgage is then repaid with curiosity, whereas the collateral helps preserve stability and mitigate danger for the lender.
“Lots of people are utilizing (crypto loans) for numerous use circumstances,” says Shen. “As a substitute of promoting the belongings that you just imagine in, you may proceed holding on to the belongings after which get on the spot liquidity, however you don’t should go to a financial institution to fill out an utility or wait days or perhaps weeks to get that on the spot liquidity.”
DeFi lending operates very otherwise from conventional financial institution lending. Banks usually conduct detailed credit score checks, reviewing employment historical past, earnings and financial institution statements earlier than approving a mortgage. In contrast, DeFi loans can usually be accessed inside minutes, with no middleman involvement and minimal background checks, as approval is based totally on posted collateral somewhat than creditworthiness.
This mannequin brings each benefits and dangers. The absence of affordability assessments can expose debtors to overleveraging and potential losses if asset values fall. Nonetheless, the pliability of crypto-backed loans permits customers to handle repayments on their very own phrases.
Regulatory oversight has additionally elevated. Since 2022, the Securities and Trade Fee (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee (CFTC) have performed a higher position in supervising facets of crypto lending, recognising even earlier than the collapses of TerraLuna and FTX that clearer guardrails can be obligatory if components of the business had been to reflect conventional banking providers.
Crypto companies need to be banks… proper?
If the previous a number of weeks have revealed something, it’s that crypto companies and banks usually are not seeing eye to eye in relation to finalising the Senate Banking Committee‘s draft for the US CLARITY Act.
Whereas US banks push for stablecoin yield and rewards to be banned, crypto companies are pushing again claiming any ban can be considered as anti-competitive. And whereas crypto companies have their very own vested pursuits in guaranteeing sure proposals are crypto-friendly within the invoice, is the anti-competitive angle from the business an indication crypto companies are actually viewing banks as competitors greater than ever earlier than?
Current years may have you believing crypto exchanges like Coinbase are slowly morphing into banks, however on their very own phrases, delivering card funds with Bitcoin cashback, yield connected to stablecoin funds, and crypto lending that may be secured in minutes. Of their phrases, they’re turning into the “all the pieces alternate”.
“The all the pieces alternate represents a multi-year journey we’ve been on to permit individuals to primarily commerce, handle and develop their cash throughout many various belongings”, provides Shen.
This shift to turn out to be a one-stop-shop to commerce, make funds and put money into shares has additionally expanded into prediction markets in Coinbase’s partnership with Kalshi. This proliferation of ‘Tremendous Apps’ has seen crypto exchanges deploy banking merchandise inside their very own DeFi infrastructure; but the ultimate hurdle continues to stay regulation and maybe much less so the validation from conventional banks.
The pure development for crypto companies can be to start to use for banking licenses, which many have already began to do. Coinbase, Ripple, and Crypto.com are simply among the many digital asset firms which have utilized for nationwide belief financial institution charters in latest months as President Donald Trump’s pro-crypto and deregulation agendas have created new pathways to market,
However whereas a licence will allow Coinbase to turn out to be a recognised and controlled US financial institution, it could solely function an enabler for the corporate’s true goal: to take away intermediaries and the necessity for a number of providers to turn out to be the ‘all the pieces alternate’ it guarantees to ship.
“With the all the pieces alternate, the imaginative and prescient is to return on Coinbase and have a slew of choices on what you may commerce, the way you need to earn after which use your cash flexibly,” concludes Shen.
“You possibly can deploy cash by ongoing passive incomes, by staking, lending, and many others., after which get liquidity in opposition to it. And also you’re going to have fee wants.
“As a substitute of getting a brokerage account the place you retain a few of your cash in a financial institution that isn’t incomes any cash in any respect, we need to collapse these and make this fluid, multi functional place, all incomes from all of the providers we offer.”
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