Coinbase Users Can Now Earn Interest on Their USDC Holdings
- The exchange’s new rewards program allows its users to earn a 1.25% annual percentage yield (APY) for every USDC in their accounts.
- The rewards will be distributed on a monthly basis, and can be used to buy other cryptocurrencies listed on the exchange.
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U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase now allows its users to earn interest on their USD Coin (USDC) holdings, the company announced in a blog post on 2 October.
According to the publication, on Wednesday Coinbase launched its USDC Rewards program, which allows all its eligible U.S. customers to earn a 1.25% annual percentage yield (APY) reward for every USDC they hold on the exchange.
As with many things crypto, New York state customers will have to wait before they can benefit from this program, as it will not be available for them initially.
Paul Katsen, Coinbase’s product manager, said:
“We’re trying to build more ways for customers to grow their wealth on Coinbase. One of the things we know is a bad customer experience is having to move your money back and forth from Coinbase to a bank account [to] earn a little bit of interest in the bank account. We’re trying to bring some of these experiences together but make them crypto-first and on Coinbase.”
The statement further stressed that there are no additional costs or fees associated with the rewards program, and that its users automatically begin to accumulate rewards for every USD Coin they have in their Coinbase account.
The rewards will be distributed on a monthly basis, with users being able to track them in real-time, and use them to buy any other cryptocurrency listed on the exchange.
In its announcement, Coinbase said that USDC is not a legal tender, and that the exchange is not a depository institution.
It also added that the USDC wallet is not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC).
The USD Coin was introduced in September 2018 by the CENTRE Consortium, which is a joint venture between Coinbase and Circle.
Almost one year later, in early August, CENTRE announced that it has issued over a billion USDC.
- A little over $13 million in altcoins were sent to crypto exchanges Binance and Coinbase in the past 24 hours, which is in accordance with a September court order.
- The court ordered a phased liquidation process, which allows the bankruptcy estate to sell $3.4 billion worth of digital assets over a certain period of time.
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- The digital ID project said Orb Operators received USDC payments as part of the project’s transitional phase after launch, and now that it is nearing its end Worldcoin will be switching to WLD payments.
- Worldcoin warned Orb Operators to check if they can claim rewards in their region as WLD are not available in the United States and “certain other restricted territories”.
- Coinbase’s Base blockchain was made available to the public on Wednesday, featuring over 100 dApps and services as part of its ecosystem.
- In order to show its capabilities and promote its mainnet partners, Base has also launched an event called “Onchain Summer” that will allow users to mint exclusive NFTs on the network.