Head of Financial Services & Loyalty products @ Coinbase 🏦 ⛓️
San Francisco
Joined July 2015
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Enjoyed reflecting on how ‘inevitable brands’ are formed, from the seat of a product builder
Often starts with the product itself - the fundamental utility, the feelings evoked when it is used, and the ‘through-lines’ that allow for an evergreen evolution in the product and brand story 🧬
For Cash App, it was speed of money & helping customers feel better about their finances, regardless of their starting point. For Coinbase, it’s helping customers use frontier technology to achieve better financial outcomes, in a simple & trusted way.
Watch the full panel here: m.youtube.com/watch?v=oishR6…
Some brands feel inevitable. Tomorrow I'm on a panel for SFTech Week with four people who have built that feeling at scale:
Cristina Cordova, COO at Linear
Hannah Hughes, CMO at Plaid
Ben Shen, Product Lead at Coinbase
Michael Duane, Product Lead at Cash App
We'll get into what an inevitable brand takes when your customers are both humans and agents, and how you keep the design simple while the technology underneath gets harder.
That's the bar I've set for Warp's brand. Analog precision meets velocity. Engineered for performance, designed with soul.
What I've learned so far is that inevitable brands are built on details nobody sees, and they get those details right every time, for years, until the result just looks obvious.
RSVP link in the comments
Your assets, your liquidity.💧
Updating the post below, since it was popular with readers.
The ability to use BTC as collateral continues to grow. This is important for any asset and it should be watched, because it increases utility and inherent value.
Coinbase recently added to its “borrow” product that lets customers borrow cash using their BTC as collateral. There are now three options. See the screenshot below (taken today).
Recap: You deposit BTC as collateral and get USDC, which is immediately convertible to USD, then a quick transfer to your linked bank account. Attractive rates. You can choose to repay the loan whenever you want, at which point you get your BTC back (so you retain any future price appreciation).
That’s a very attractive option for various types of borrowers ranging from individuals to small businesses.
I’ve been surprised by how many people -- even veterans of the BTC space -- don’t seem to be aware of how easy this process has become, or that it even exists. But make no mistake: This is huge financial innovation. And Coinbase definitely isn’t alone -- other companies also offer this product.
Keep watching as BTC collateral usage grows. Over the long term, it’s important.
Ben Shen retweeted
NEW: Citrini laid out 'The Investable RWA Stack' which answers the, "How do you express the tokenization supercycle thesis in markets today? question.
Trillions are coming.
Ben Shen retweeted
A new Economic Letter highlights that stablecoin issuers' Treasury holdings have grown more than $200B in five years, helping offset the decline in China's holdings. sffed.us/4rG1Ure
Ben Shen retweeted
One of the most slept-on, unpriced-in things is that the world's wealth--dollars, bonds, stocks, derivatives, you name it--is all getting transmuted into smart contracts on blockchains, in the biggest financial reboot since joint-stock companies.
This isn't memecoin bullshit or monkey JPEGs.
Your personal financial app's backend will be a blockchain; you'll earn yield or invest via assets that exist on a blockchain; the biggest institutions in the world will slosh around value on blockchains. It's likely to happen so fast that most people won't even notice.
Borrow expanding to ZEC and HYPE!
Get USDC against your Zcash and Hyperliquid without selling it, on Coinbase
Instant liquidity. On all of your assets. 👨🚀 🚀 🪐
What do you want to see next?
Instinct telling me not to trust Muse with data 🤔
Will this ‘other agents’ awareness make agents more effective, or just more manipulative?
Ben Shen retweeted
First you fight them then you join em.
Citi is partnering with Coinbase to let its institutional clients accept stablecoin payments, with Coinbase providing the payment rails and blockchain infrastructure while Citi settles the funds as bank of record.
The partnership will also let customers hold and move stablecoins through Citi’s banking infrastructure, while Citi separately expands its own token services to Japan and the UAE.
Meta, 3 weeks later:
Hold my Muse & my glasses 😎🍺
After using meta glasses to direct Instinct for the past 48 hours, the potential of wearables → personal agents is clear to me
Funny how no one has all of the pieces yet:
- Meta glasses / airpods = right hardware to direct agents on the go, but Meta AI + Apple Intelligence are horrendous
- Instinct = good personal agent, though can only message it via hack-y approaches (‘Hey Meta, message instinct <XYZ>’, while enabling announce messages)
- Claude Code with remote control + Tailscale = even more powerful than instinct, though there’s no way to message it flexibly - not to mention using wearables
Infinity stones are still out there for the taking
Ben Shen retweeted
JUST IN: 🇺🇸 SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce calls to end mass KYC data collection, warning it puts crypto holders at risk of phishing and physical attacks.
Pierce says the current KYC/AML system creates massive databases of sensitive information that can be hacked, leaked, or exploited.
She's pushing for zero-knowledge proofs (ZK proofs) that could verify users meet regulatory requirements without exposing their personal information.
Classic moment where you look towards the picks & shovels ⛏️
@juecd__ and the @usekernel team are powering the infra which allows agents to navigate websites, make purchases, book travel, and complete real-world tasks - including for one of the platforms that everyone has adopted overnight.
If AI agents become a primary way people use the internet, browser infrastructure becomes an enormous category alongside them.
every major company is arriving at roughly the same offering:
persistent memory, email/calendar/messages, browser + computer use, background tasks, proactive notifications, voice, app/tool execution, ambient context, & some notion of a personal agent sitting above everything.
remarkable levels of convergence with very little differentiation whatsoever.
Introducing Fixed-rate Borrow Loans
Get instant liquidity on your assets, with certainty on your rate & repayment date 💧
Helping our customers get the most out of their assets, on Coinbase - and in partnership with @Morpho 🤝
Ben Shen retweeted
Now you can participate in IPOs on Coinbase
We’re giving US retail customers more access to primary financial markets.
This is the next step toward building the Everything Exchange, a trusted platform to trade any asset at any stage of its lifecycle.
Ben Shen retweeted
Big W for @base.
Thought I’d look into some of the drivers behind this:
1. Growing deposits on @Morpho are helping fuel Base’s lending market.
2. @coinbase makes it easier for its users to access lending on Base.
3. More assets can be used as collateral, including tokenized stocks, giving people more reasons to deposit.
Easier access and more ways to put assets to work is a strong combo for growth. Distribution really is everything here.
