Coinbase's Talks With TradFi Firms Pick Up as Crypto Becomes More Bipartisan

With digital assets getting more support from both sides of the red-blue divide, Coinbase's conversations with traditional financial institutions have been picking up steam, said Shan Aggarwal, the exchange’s vice president of corporate and business development.

In an interview with Decrypt at Messari Mainnet, Aggarwal said that Coinbase's talks with big financial firms have “taken a turn” in the past six to nine months, particularly as the cryptocurrency issue in the U.S. has become increasingly bipartisan. He said conversations could eventually bring more traditional financial players into Web3, fueling mass adoption of digital assets.

“A lot of traditional financial firms [for whom] this might not be their core business are taking note of that, and are thinking... maybe now is the right time to actually jump into the pool,” Aggarwal told Decrypt.

He said “troublesome” on-ramps are still a massive pain point for onboarding the next wave of Web3 users onto the blockchain. But if traditional financial institutions move into crypto and help Main Street users deal with the technical complexities of crypto, then that could pave the way for wider adoption of digital currencies.

“Having a broader base of banking partners that are working with crypto companies, streamlining the way that money moves into the ecosystem… reduces probably the biggest outstanding friction for users to actually use on-chain apps,” he said.

In May, more than 70 House Democrats crossed the aisle to vote in favor of the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (aka FIT21), a bill that would implement a regulatory framework for digital assets in the U.S. And earlier this year, a dozen U.S. Democratic senators united with their Republican counterparts to pass a resolution to rescind a SEC policy that harmed banks offering crypto services.

The surge in support for digital assets from Democrats and Republicans comes as Fairshake, a political action committee, has distributed more than $130 million to politicians ahead of the U.S. general election.

The super PAC’s war chest is the largest of any interest group this election cycle, holding more than $200 million, data from nonprofit organization OpenSecrets shows. Coinbase is one of Fairshake's biggest backers, along with Ripple and VC firm Andreessen Horowitz—and the super PAC's recent House and Senate endorsements were nearly split even between the two parties.

"It used to be viewed that crypto was a partisan issue, and I think if there's anything that we've learned, it's really bipartisan," Aggarwal said. "It's not a blue issue or a red issue. It's really a purple issue."

Additional reporting by Sander Lutz

Edited by Andrew Hayward