Coinbase announces USDC Bootstrap Fund to support DeFi projects

Coinbase is announcing a new initiative called the USDC Bootstrap Fund. As the name suggests, the company wants to support developers with a fund composed of USDC tokens.

DeFi, or Decentralized Finance, is a recent trend in the blockchain space. DeFi projects are traditional financial products that you'd expect from a traditional bank, such as lending protocols and derivatives, built on top of a blockchain.

Thanks to the decentralized nature of these protocols, it's harder to censor them and more people should theoretically be able to access those services.

Going back to Coinbase, the company thinks there's not enough liquidity for some DeFi protocols. The startup wants to improve that by investing USDC directly in DeFi protocols. Those investments are smart contracts, and returns should be provided by a counterparty, such as a borrower or taker.

In other words, it'll become much easier to borrow USDC using some DeFi protocols as Coinbase is providing a pool of USDC tokens. Counterparties will have to provide crypto collateral and pay some interest rate.

Coinbase is also announcing its first two investments through the USDC Bootstrap Fund. The company is handing 1 million in USDC to Compound, and 1 million in USDC to dYdX.