Coinbase Now Supports Another Stablecoin, MakerDAO’s Dai

Major cryptocurrency platform Coinbase now supports stablecoin Dai (DAI), according to an official press release on May 23.

Coinbase says that the token can be purchased and sold, sent and received, and converted or stored in most jurisdictions on its platform, with the exception of New York, for now.

DAI is designed to maintain a 1:1 value with the U.S. dollar, but is backed collateral on the MKR platform. Both Ethereum-based token MKR and DAI are issued by MakerDAO.

However, DAI has been worth under $1 for much of 2019, which has sparked five voting sessions from DAO users on raising the stability fee for reclaiming collateral, in an effort to keep the token closer to its intended value of $1.

Coinbase recently announced that its cryptocurrency payment processor, Coinbase Commerce, will now support the stablecoin USDC. The addition of this stablecoin support will reportedly allow users to receive payments without transaction fees by receiving money in USDC.

In the announcement, Coinbase also commented that USDC payments circumvent the need for a bank account or geographical limitations.

Coinbase has also greatly expanded its geographical support for trading as well as its educational program Coinbase Earn, with the former being available in 50 new countries and the latter in over 100 new countries.

According to Coinbase, giving trading support in more countries catalyzes the future of world-wide crypto trading, and stablecoin options could have great impact for some countries in the immediate future:

“For new customers in countries like Argentina and Uzbekistan, where consumer prices are expected to inflate by 10–20% in 2020, stablecoins like USDC could provide an opportunity to protect against inflation.”