Stabledash Live · · 23 min

Coinbase One Card Explained: Up to 4% Bitcoin Back on Everything

With Ben Shen

Key takeaways

  • Coinbase acquired The Clearing Company, and prediction markets now sit inside the Coinbase app.

  • The Coinbase One Card pays up to 4% back in Bitcoin instantly on all categories, with no points and no blackout dates.

  • Ben Shen expects brokerage and financial services to blend further and says stablecoin payments will be a 'rocket ship'.

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Summary

Coinbase's Ben Shen describes how prediction markets, a 4% Bitcoin-back card and new earn and borrow tools fit Coinbase's "everything exchange" plan.

Coinbase acquired The Clearing Company to bring prediction markets onto its platform, and they now appear embedded in the Coinbase app. Ben Shen, head of financial services and loyalty products at Coinbase, framed the move as part of a wider push that also includes a card paying up to 4% back in Bitcoin.

An everything exchange

Ben Shen says Coinbase is now an "everything exchange" where users can trade all kinds of assets and get more utility from what they hold. The company has launched an earn center that pulls together what were siloed experiences around USDC rewards, lending and staking, and a more cohesive borrow experience that shows users their borrowing power based on assets they hold.

Coinbase also announced a partnership with Better Mortgage under which Coinbase One members can pledge crypto toward a mortgage and get a 1% rebate.

“The core truth remains that there's just a huge opportunity to serve customers in their everyday lives, you know, across all these different jobs. Right? Trading, investing, saving, spending.”
Ben Shen

The card

The Coinbase One Card earns up to 4% in Bitcoin instantly on all categories. Shen says holders can pay the statement balance with USDC, other crypto or a linked bank account, and that the card carries Amex premium card benefits such as travel insurance and rental car insurance. It is tied to Coinbase One, which starts at $50 per year with the basic membership.

Lessons from Cash App

Ben Shen joined Coinbase roughly one year ago after about eight and a half years building at Cash App, which he joined in 2016. He advises founders to go deep on one good hook rather than start with a business model, and to abstract away the technology, since the customer is "just thinking about how can I move money". He says the same applies to stablecoins.

What comes next

Shen expects further blending of brokerage and financial services capabilities, and a democratization of more asset classes, including private and tokenized assets. He predicts agentic payments and stablecoin payments "will continue to be a rocket ship."

Taken together, Shen's account shows Coinbase tying trading, prediction markets, earning, borrowing and spending into one membership. In his words, the core truth is a huge opportunity to serve customers across trading, investing, saving and spending.

Coinbase, Cash App, Block, and The Clearing Company come up most.

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