CryptoSlate
Coinbase Asset Management has launched the Coinbase Stablecoin Credit Strategy (CUSHY), an institutional fund that gives qualified investors exposure to public, private, and opportunistic credit, with optional tokenized shares running on Superstate's FundOS platform and Northern Trust as fund administrator. The product layers in structural alpha from tokenization, protocol incentives, and on-chain market structure, with Coinbase Prime as prime services provider and Base, Solana, and Ethereum as the supported settlement networks.
The launch is a direct bet that stablecoins — which topped $33 trillion in transaction volume in 2025 with an average of 89 million daily holding addresses — are mature enough to serve as distribution rails for institutional credit. Coinbase already monetises the stack: the firm booked $1.35 billion in stablecoin revenue in 2025, with subscriptions and services accounting for 41% of total net revenue of $6.88 billion. CUSHY turns that infrastructure into a recurring asset-management relationship rather than a pure payments or trading rail.
Why it matters
CUSHY lands while Congress is hashing out the Clarity Act, where the central fight is whether stablecoin issuers can pass yield through to holders — and the bank lobby is pushing to keep that yield captive. Coinbase is essentially making the product case the legislation won't: if stablecoin rails can distribute institutional credit, the case for restricting yield weakens. McKinsey and Artemis put actual stablecoin payment activity at roughly $390 billion in 2025, modest against the headline $33T on-chain volume, and only about $8 billion of that flowed through capital-markets settlement. Private credit — where the Fed tracked bank commitments climbing from roughly $8 billion in Q1 2013 to about $95 billion in Q4 2024 — is the most direct bridge between what stablecoins can technically do and what institutional finance actually needs.
Frequently asked questions
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What is the Coinbase Stablecoin Credit Strategy (CUSHY)?
CUSHY is an institutional fund launched by Coinbase Asset Management giving qualified investors exposure to public, private, and opportunistic credit, with optional tokenized shares on Superstate's FundOS platform. Northern Trust serves as fund administrator and Coinbase Prime as prime services provider, with Base,…
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How does CUSHY relate to the Clarity Act and stablecoin yield?
CUSHY launches while Congress is debating the Clarity Act, where the central fight is whether stablecoin issuers can pass yield through to holders. The product is effectively a proof-of-concept that stablecoin rails can distribute institutional credit, which weakens the case for restricting yield at the issuer level.
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What scale of capital is Coinbase working with on its platform?
Coinbase held an average of $17.8 billion in USDC balances across its products during 2025. The firm booked $1.35 billion in stablecoin revenue in 2025, with subscriptions and services accounting for 41% of total net revenue of $6.88 billion.
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How big is the tokenized credit market right now?
RWA.xyz shows tokenized credit at $5.01 billion in distributed value and $21.2 billion in represented value as of April 2026, with represented value up 5.54% over the prior 30 days. BCG puts tokenized US Treasuries at $13.6 billion in the same month.
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What is the bear case for CUSHY and tokenized credit more broadly?
If institutions prefer permissioned, bank-issued tokens for the settlement leg of credit products, the most lucrative flows could consolidate around JPMorgan's tokenized deposit rails even as the credit thesis is proven on-chain. An early credit event in a tokenized vehicle would freeze appetite across the entire…
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