Customers in over 70 countries can now earn yield with DeFi, according to cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase.
Customers in over 70 countries can now earn interest on their crypto assets through the realm of decentralized finance, according to cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase.
“We’re making DeFi more accessible,” Coinbase stated in a prepared statement. “Eligible users in more than 70 countries can now access the enticing rates of DeFi lending on their DAI with no fees, lockups, or set-up fuss.”
Increasing the accessibility of DeFi
Coinbase’s intention to make DeFi “more client-friendly and approachable” is at the heart of this decision.
Customers can choose to earn DeFi yield by using the DAI stablecoin. Customers’ DAI holdings will be deposited with Compound Finance, an “industry-leading” DeFi system, The interest rate on this yield, on the other hand, is variable.
Compound’s rates for supplying DAI, for example, fluctuated between 2.8 percent and 5.3 percent in October. “The higher rates reflect both the unique access to global liquidity and the extra risk that DeFi can bring,” according to Coinbase.
Despite this risk, the cryptocurrency exchange remains optimistic about DeFi’s potential. “We’re excited to be able to provide a trusted and accessible means to engage in DeFi because it has huge potential to help improve economic independence,” the exchange noted.
The United States, Coinbase, and DeFi
Coinbase’s DeFi yield is not currently available to consumers in the United States, despite the fact that it has been rolled out to 70 qualified nations, including significant economies such as Germany and the United Kingdom.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong took to Twitter in September to express his displeasure with the SEC’s threat to sue the exchange if it launched its yield-earning product, Lend.
“Some really dodgy conduct coming out of the SEC recently,” Armstrong added, criticizing the SEC’s decision to classify Coinbase’s Lend as a security, a decision for which he was heavily chastised at the time.
“They refuse to tell us why they think it’s a security, instead subpoenaing a bunch of information (which we comply with), demanding testimony from our employees (which we comply with), and then threatening to sue us if we go ahead and launch,” he added.
Meanwhile, the SEC, led by chairman Gary Gensler, has spoken out against the DeFi sector.
Throughout the year, Gensler has raised the alarm, claiming that the DeFi business, as well as the wider world of crypto, requires stronger consumer protection regulations.
“A lot of financing is going on.” A lot of trade is going on. And without safeguards, I think it would end badly,” Gensler said in October.
