Coinbase has extended its USDC-denominated borrowing facility to customers in the United Kingdom, allowing users to take loans of up to $5 million against cryptocurrency collateral. The move marks a significant expansion of the exchange's retail lending products into a major new market.
"Eligible users in the UK can now borrow USDC from Coinbase," the company announced, confirming the product's availability. The service enables users to borrow the Circle-issued stablecoin by posting Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and Coinbase-staked Ether (cbETH) as collateral, integrating lending services directly with their trading accounts.
The borrowing is facilitated through the Morpho protocol, a decentralized lending platform that operates on Coinbase's own layer-2 network, Base. This integration could drive increased on-chain activity and liquidity to both the Base network and the Morpho protocol as UK users begin to utilize the service. The expansion follows the product's initial rollout in other jurisdictions.
This development increases the utility for holding Bitcoin and Ether on the Coinbase platform for UK-based customers, who can now access liquidity without selling their assets. It also strengthens Coinbase's competitive position in the region against other platforms like Nexo or BlockFi that have offered similar crypto-backed loan products. The potential impact on demand for USDC within the UK market will be a key metric to watch in the coming months.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
