Coinbase Secures CFTC Approval, Expands Partnership with Citi
Coinbase has made significant strides in regulatory approval and partnerships this week. On Monday, the company secured CFTC approval for Coinbase Clearing LLC, a USDC-native derivatives clearinghouse.
This approval marks the completion of Coinbase's end-to-end derivatives infrastructure, enabling the exchange to create and settle fully collateralized contracts directly using USDC as collateral with 24/7 settlement.
Coinbase General Counsel Molly Abraham stated that today's CFTC approval completes Coinbase's regulated derivatives stack. She added that this enables them to bring more regulated derivatives products to market with native USDC collateral and 24/7 settlement.
In other news, Coinbase and Citi announced an expanded collaboration to connect digital and fiat payments for corporations and consumers. This partnership will use Citi Services' Virtual Account Wallet to power Coinbase Virtual Accounts, delivering bank-account-like functionality with automatic fiat-to-stablecoin conversion.
The two companies also partnered on Spring by Citi, which enables institutional clients to accept stablecoin payments at checkout, powered by Coinbase Payments, with automatic conversion to fiat settled by Citi as the bank of record. This partnership aims to bridge the gap between digital and traditional payment systems.