As Washington deliberates over the Clarity Act, which addresses banks and crypto companies’ rivalry concerning stablecoins, Coinbase has unveiled its ‘Coinbase Stablecoin Credit Strategy’ (CUSHY). This initiative is aimed at qualified investors and institutions seeking exposure to public, private, and opportunistic credit. Investors are given access to structural alpha through tokenization, protocol incentives, and on-chain market dynamics.
Coinbase’s move signifies a belief that stablecoins—having processed over $33 trillion in transaction volume in 2025 with around 89 million daily holding addresses—are now robust enough to act as conduits for institutional credit. In 2025, Coinbase reported earning $1.35 billion from stablecoin operations, contributing 41% of its total net revenue of $6.88 billion.
The optional tokenized shares operate on the Superstate FundOS platform, with Northern Trust as the fund administrator, Coinbase Prime providing prime services, and support across Base, Solana, and Ethereum networks. CUSHY aligns with Coinbase’s strategy to leverage stablecoin infrastructure for creating asset management products that foster institutional relationships.
According to McKinsey and Artemis, actual stablecoin payment activity stood at approximately $390 billion in 2025—a fraction of the on-chain volume cited by Coinbase. The BIS reported similar figures around $35 trillion for annual volumes, noting limited real-economy applications with most activities involving trading or internal transfers.
Private credit serves as a crucial link between stablecoins’ potential and institutional finance needs. McKinsey found that only about $8 billion of stablecoin activity was related to capital markets settlement in 2025. The Federal Reserve documented an increase in bank commitments to private credit vehicles from roughly $8 billion in early 2013 to nearly $95 billion by late 2024, all within traditional financial structures.
Tokenization enhances subscription mechanics and transfer speeds but does not eliminate the inherent risks of structured finance, such as liquidity mismatches. CUSHY maintains this tension between digital efficiency and credit market depth, with the Federal Reserve highlighting concerns over opacity and interconnectedness in private-credit vehicles.
If Citigroup’s projection of $1.9 trillion in stablecoin issuance by 2030 is accurate, CUSHY could be a timely venture. With $17.8 billion in average USDC balances within Coinbase products during 2025, the transition to credit products seems natural for institutional capital already engaged with Coinbase.
Citi forecasts that stablecoin issuance might reach up to $4 trillion under optimistic scenarios by 2030, although bank-token turnover could surpass these volumes. This presents a competitive landscape where Coinbase may contend with JPMorgan’s tokenized deposit rails and other bank-controlled systems.
The success of CUSHY hinges on whether institutional investors trust public chain stablecoin networks over the permissioned token systems developed by major banks.