Coinbase: "What if we call them rewards instead of interest payments?"

From the blog post:

Coinbase will pay 5% APY to anyone who holds USD Coins (USDC), a dollar stablecoin, on its platform. (Coinbase co-created USDC with Circle, and shares in the revenues generated by the assets backing USD Coin.) The rate that Coinbase pays to its customers who hold USDC-denominated balances has steadily tracked the general rise in broader interest rates over the last year or so, rising from 0.15% to 1.5% in October 2022, then to 4% this June, 4.6% in August, and now 5%.

Coinbase isn't a bank, nor is it an SEC-approved money market mutual fund. And unlike Wise and PayPal, Coinbase's interest payments aren't powered under the hood by a bank.

So how does Coinbase pull this off?

In short, Coinbase seems to have seized on a third-path to paying interest. It cleverly describes the ability to receive interest as a "loyalty program", which puts it in the same bucket as Starbucks Rewards or Delta's air miles program. The program itself is dubbed USDC Rewards, and in its FAQ, customers are consistently described as "earning rewards" rather than "earning interest."

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There's two ways to look at Coinbase's USDC rewards program. The positive take is that in a world where financial institutions like Bank of America continue to screw their customers over by paying a lame 0.01% APY on deposits when the risk-free rate is 5.5%, Coinbase should be applauded for finding a way to offer its retail clientele 5%.

The less positive take is that USDC Rewards appear to be a form of regulatory arbitrage. It sure looks like Coinbase is trying to squeeze an interest-yielding financial product into a loyalty points framework, which is probably cheaper from a compliance perspective. If Coinbase was just selling coffee, and the rewards were linked to that product, then it might deserve the benefit of the doubt. But Coinbase describes itself as on a mission to "build an open financial system," which suggests that these aren't just loyalty points. They're a financial product. And financial products are generally held to strict regulatory standards in the name of protecting consumers.