Coinbase is Driving Adoption of Circle's USDC for Payments, Financial Services: Bernstein | Breaking Crypto News & Blockchain Updates

Coinbase is Driving Adoption of Circle's USDC for Payments, Financial Services: Bernstein — Crypto exchange Coinbase(COIN)is moving beyond its role as a USDC distributor, positioning itself as a key driver of stablecoin adoption across paymen...

Crypto exchange Coinbase(COIN)is moving beyond its role as a USDC distributor, positioning itself as a key driver of stablecoin adoption across payments and financial services, Wall Street broker Bernstein said in a research report Wednesday.

The company recently launchedCoinbase Payments, built in collaboration with Stripe and Shopify, and also introducedCoinbase Business, targeting startups and smaller companies. Both services use Circle's USDC stablecoin.

In derivatives,Coinbase partnered with Nodal Clearto use USDC as collateral in U.S. futures markets.

The crypto exchange's Base blockchain has hosted over $3.7 billion in USDC and has processed $6.8 trillion in USDC-related settlement volume year-to-date, Bernstein analysts, led by Gautam Chhugani, wrote.

Coinbase owns a direct equity stake in Circle(CRCL), the issuer of USDC, and also has a revenue sharing agreement for the stablecoin.

"Under the new revenue sharing agreement, Coinbase received 100% of the interest income from USDC held directly on its platform, and for the USDC held off-platform, Coinbase and Circle split the revenue 50:50," said Chhugani.

Stablecoins are cryptocurrencieswhose value is tied to another asset, such as the U.S. dollar or gold. They play a major role in cryptocurrency markets and are also used to transfer money internationally.

Stablecoin revenues have become a major contributor to Coinbase’s bottom line, Chhugani continued. Non-trading revenue grew from $181M in 2020 to $2.8 billion in 2024, now accounting for 42% of total revenue.

The shift underscores Coinbase’s incentive to scale USDC utility across payments anddecentralized finance(DeFi), anchoring it as a long-term growth engine beyond trading, the report added.

Bernstein has an outperform rating on both Coinbase and Circle, with respective price targets of $510 and $230.

Read more:Coinbase Is the Most Misunderstood Business in Crypto, Says Analyst With Highest Wall Street Price Target

Will Canny is an experienced market reporter with a demonstrated history of working in the financial services industry. He's now covering the crypto beat as a finance reporter at CoinDesk. He owns more than $1,000 of SOL.

“AI Boost” indicates a generative text tool, typically an AI chatbot, contributed to the article. In each and every case, the article was edited, fact-checked and published by a human.Read more about CoinDesk's AI Policy.

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