Coinbase is breathing new life into its Stablecoin Bootstrap Fund in a bid to strengthen liquidity for USD Coin (USDC) across both established and up-and-coming decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols.
The U.S. crypto exchange said on Tuesday the fund’s initial capital deployments will inject USDC liquidity into Ethereum-based lending platforms Aave and Morpho, as well as Solana-powered trading venues Kamino and Jupiter. Coinbase Asset Management will oversee the placements, aiming to give users more consistent and competitive rates across a wider range of DeFi markets.
Here’s an idea: How about a new Stablecoin Bootstrap Fund?
Today, we’re launching our next Bootstrap Fund — deepening stablecoin liquidity in DeFi and helping teams grow their protocols. pic.twitter.com/varQRlZb9a
— Coinbase ????️ (@coinbase) August 12, 2025
The relaunch comes six years after the fund’s debut in September 2019, when Coinbase seeded early Ethereum DeFi platforms such as Uniswap, Compound, and dYdX with USDC. Back then, its first moves included $1 million deployments to Compound and dYdX.
Today, USDC boasts a market capitalization of $65.6 billion, though it still trails far behind market leader Tether (USDT) at $164.6 billion, according to CoinGecko. Tether continues to dominate trading volume across the crypto industry, maintaining a lead of more than $100 billion in market cap.
The renewed push for USDC liquidity comes as total value locked (TVL) in DeFi stands at $165.4 billion, per DefiLlama data, with Aave and Ethereum liquid staking protocol Lido leading at $41 billion and $40.8 billion, respectively.
USDC is now supported across multiple blockchains, including Ethereum, Base, Solana, Polygon, Aptos, Avalanche, and Sui. Coinbase — which co-founded the stablecoin with issuer Circle — remains a central player in its ecosystem.
The announcement follows Coinbase’s second-quarter earnings report, which showed $1.5 billion in revenue — short of the $1.56–$1.59 billion range analysts expected. Revenue fell 26% from the previous quarter, but income linked to USDC and other stablecoin operations climbed 12% to $332 million.
In a parallel development, Coinbase has rebranded its Coinbase Wallet to “Base app” as part of a plan to transform it into an all-in-one “super app” that combines social networking, chat, payments, apps, and trading.
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