Your Bank Is Obsolete

Using old banks, traditional credit cards, and manual investing is costing you.

Coinbase is now a full wealth management platform with yield-bearing accounts, credit cards, collateralized lending, and automated investing.

Feature	Traditional	Coinbase
Savings yield	0.01%	3.5-7%
Rewards	4% points (depreciating)	2-4% BTC (appreciating)
Accessing liquidity	Sell and pay taxes	Borrow with no tax event
Investment capture	Manual (86% effective)	Automated (100%)

Try it yourself: Input your numbers below to see the impact on your 30-40 year wealth trajectory.

Wealth Calculator

Annual Income (post-tax)

$30K$500K

Credit Card Spend

$500/mo$10K/mo

Savings Rate

1.0%25.0%

Investment Rate

1.0%30.0%

Wealth projection over 40 years

At 30 years

Traditional

$370K

Conservative

$499K

Aggressive

$997K

Your advantage:+$627K (169%)

At 40 years

Traditional

$712K

Conservative

$992K

Aggressive

$2.58M

Your advantage:+$1.87M (263%)

At a 5.0% savings rate on $60K income, platform choice creates a $1.87M difference over 40 years.

That's 37.4 additional years of living expenses at $50K/year.

Assumptions: Savings yield 0.5% (bank) / 3.5% (Coinbase) / 7.05% (Morpho). Investment returns 7% (stocks/conservative BTC) / 10% (aggressive BTC). BTC rewards grow at investment rate. Past performance does not guarantee future results.

How it works

Traditional finance extracts value through structural inefficiencies:

Near-zero yields: Your money sits idle earning 0.01% while the bank lends it at 6-20%.
Manual investing: Research shows 13.6% effectiveness loss from behavioral friction¹.
Depreciating rewards: Credit card points locked in closed ecosystems with gotchas and expiration.
Tax on liquidity: Accessing your assets triggers capital gains events.

These small frictions create six-figure gaps over a 30-40 year career. Let's look at each more closely.

Savings Yield

When you hold USDC in Coinbase:

You capture the value: Instead of your bank lending your deposits at 6% and giving you 0.01%, you receive 3.5-7% directly
- Stablecoins are backed by treasury bills which pay interest. That interest is passed along to Coinbase One users (currently ~3.5%)
- Onchain lending services pay interest to users who deposit stablecoins to be lent out to borrowers (this rate is more dynamic than treasury rates, but can be as high as ~7%)
Your funds stay liquid: Unlike traditional banks which require lockups and CDs to provide yield better than 0.01%, onchain yield has no lockups nor penalties for withdrawals

$10,000 Compounded Over 30 Years

Deposit type:

Shows growth of a one-time $10,000 deposit with no additional contributions.

Traditional Bank(0.01% APY)

$10,030

USDC Rewards(3.50% APY)

$28,068

Morpho DeFi(7.05% APY)

$77,197

Initial $10K

Difference: +$67,167

Credit Card Rewards

With traditional cards you earn points that are locked in a single ecosystem. These programs are intentionally designed with friction to limit your earnings. Even worse, points may expire and are backed solely by the issuer's solvency.

The Coinbase Card pays 2-4% back in Bitcoin.

That BTC is instantly liquid and you can do anything you want with it
That BTC can grow in value
Daily purchases act as dollar-cost averaging to grow your investments
It requires no behavioral change. You're not "investing." You're just using a credit card.
Research shows that auto-investing triggers financial education amplified by practical experience²

Rewards Over Time: Points vs. Bitcoin

Assumptions

Monthly spend

$1,500

Traditional rewards

4% (−2%/yr decay)

BTC rewards

BTC appreciation

5%/yr

BTC reward rate:

Traditional Points4% earn, −2%/yr decay

0yr

$720

5yr

$4110

10yr

$7174

15yr

$9943

20yr

$12447

25yr

$14710

30yr

$16755

BTC Rewards2% earn, +5%/yr growth

0yr

$360

5yr

$2449

10yr

$5114

15yr

$8517

20yr

$12859

25yr

$18401

30yr

$25474

30-year difference:+$8719

Traditional points lose purchasing power over time. BTC rewards can appreciate.

Investing Friction

Fragmented financial services make it challenging to auto allocate your funds to an ideal portfolio. Intending to save $500/month doesn't mean you will. Automated direct deposit removes decision fatigue and captures 100% of intended savings.

Research shows automated enrollment increased savings rates from 3.5% to 13.6% in controlled studies¹.

Coinbase now lets you send your paycheck directly to your Coinbase account and automatically allocate it to your ideal portfolio of assets across crypto and stocks.

Manual vs. Automated Investing

Assumptions

Monthly investment

$500

Annual return

Manual loss

13.6%/yr

Automated capture

100%

1yr

$5,184

$6,000

10yr

$71,624

$82,899

20yr

$212,521

$245,973

30yr

$489,685

$566,765

40yr

$1,034,908

$1,197,811

Manual (86.4%)

Automated (100%)

40-year difference: +$162,902 from eliminating behavioral friction

Cost of Accessing Liquidity

If you need more cash than you have in your account, you can either sell invested assets or borrow against them.

In traditional systems, borrowing against your assets is time intensive and uncertain, forcing the average consumer to sell invested assets. This triggers capital gains tax and lost opportunity for growth.

In the onchain system you can instantly borrow against your assets. This protects you from taxes and keeps you invested to realize potential upside.

Accessing Liquidity: Sell vs. Borrow

Scenario: Emergency repair

BTC held

$50,000

Cost basis

$20,000

Unrealized gain

$30,000 (150%)

Cash needed

$8,000

Liquidation Risk

At 16% LTV, BTC would need to drop ~80% (to $10K) before hitting the 80% liquidation threshold. Low LTV provides substantial buffer, but always have a repayment plan.

At 5% BTC appreciation: selling costs ~$1,100 to $1,400 (taxes + lost upside). Borrowing costs ~$400/yr in interest. Net savings: ~$700 to $1,000/year.

Risks

This isn't free money. It's worth calling out the risks involved:

BTC volatility: 5% appreciation assumptions are conservative but not guaranteed
Rate changes: Yields fluctuate with market conditions
Platform risk: Onchain lending services aren't FDIC insured
Liquidation: If the value of your collateral (BTC or ETH) falls significantly, it could be sold to cover the loan. Only borrow at conservative LTV (50% or lower) and have a repayment plan.

Bottom line

Approach	30-Year Gain	40-Year Gain
Conservative	+$114K-241K	+$218K-483K
Optimized	+$453K-579K	+$949K-1.37M

The difference between retiring at 67 and retiring at 60. The choice is yours.

Sources

Thaler, R.H., & Benartzi, S. (2004). "Save More Tomorrow: Using Behavioral Economics to Increase Employee Saving." Journal of Political Economy, 112(S1), S164-S187.
Future Market Insights (2024). "Micro-Investing Platform Market 2024 to 2034." Market analysis showing integration of educational resources in investing platforms helps users build financial confidence.
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. "Personal Saving Rate." Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED).