Coinbase, one of the largest crypto exchanges, may have plans to integrate support for Decentralized Finance (DeFi) apps, CFO Alesia Haas indicated while explaining the company’s DeFi strategy at a Citi event on the 15th.
The Nasdaq-listed company’s CFO made those remarks at a fintech event held by Citigroup. Explaining Coinbase’s long-term strategy, Haas went on to say, “We plan eventually to service third-party apps inside our main product and so that we’re going to be agnostic between a customer choosing a Coinbase product or a third-party DeFi product. We want to introduce and find the best product for our customers.”
Haas acknowledged the irony since Coinbase is a centralized exchange and DeFi does not factor in central financial intermediaries and noted that an app platform will help DeFi in two ways:
“One, we’re building tools to accelerate the builders in the ecosystem through Coinbase Cloud. And we believe this opportunity itself will be large in the future because more and more companies are going to want to offer crypto services to their end customers.
So the second thing we do is that we’re helping with distribution. Just like we’ve been a bridge to crypto buy, sell, we’ll be a bridge to DeFi.”
In addition, Coinbase announced on Monday that it will support Apple Pay in four European countries. The payment method can be used for crypto purchases in Ireland, Italy, Germany, and Spain.
Are you in Ireland, Italy, Germany or Spain?
🥳 Good news! You can now use @Apple Pay to buy crypto on Coinbase.
— Coinbase (@coinbase) November 15, 2021
In August, it announced that it would expand its support for Apple Pay and Google Pay in the United States, expanding its payment options from Visa and Mastercard debit cards.