Crypto Exchange Coinbase Introduces Its Own Stablecoin Payments Platform

U.S.-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (COIN) is introducing a platform for stablecoin payments to enable businesses to send and receive USDC, the company said on Thursday.

Named simply "Coinbase Business," the new set of tools will simplify vendor payments, eliminate chargebacks, and offer seamless API integrations, empowering businesses to scale efficiently, the exchange said.

USDC balances held in Coinbase Business earn 4.1% APY, and can be cashed out on demand to a linked business bank account via Wire or ACH, according to a blog post. All transactions can be synced with QuickBooks or Xero through integrations with CoinTracker, allowing users to adopt crypto payments while staying compliant.

The fast-growing stablecoin arena is a competitive space. Coinbase has a 50/50 revenue split with Circle when it comes to yield earned from the USDC stablecoin, the second largest with a market cap of $76 billion. It makes economic sense for Coinbase to bring additional USDC volume onto its own platform, even if that new platform appears to be in competition with the likes of Circle Payment Network, unveiled earlier this year.

Tom Duff Gordon, vice president of international policy at Coinbase said there is "a high degree of tolerance" when it comes to the many different business lines Circle is exploring (that are supported by Coinbase), while the exchange lists multiple stablecoins from several jurisdictions. “Some of those directions will overlap and some will be slightly different,” Duff Gordon said in an interview.

There are signs Coinbase is exploring ways to flex some stablecoin utility across the exchange as well as on Base, its Ethereum overlay system. Coinbase has held talks to acquire stablecoin payments firm BVNK for around $1.5 billion. Duff Gordon declined to comment on the status of that deal.

Looking beyond cross-border payments and remittances, Coinbase has been working on areas like AI-driven agentic commerce and the expansion of x402, an open source payments protocol for stablecoin transactions among AI agents.

"I think agentic commerce, machine-to-machine, X402, and the use of stablecoins for things like micro programmable payments in that environment is going to be very interesting," Duff Gordon said. "It won't necessarily scale overnight, but it's absolutely part of the future."