Coinbase launches redesigned mobile DeFi wallet, adds Solana support

Coinbase rolled out a redesign of its noncustodial wallet on mobile devices on Wednesday.

According to an announcement, the new features will include a dark mode, a new tab to access and explore decentralized finance (DeFi) projects and Solana blockchain support. (The desktop browser version added Solana last year.)

Other new features include price charts and a proprietary NFT indexing infrastructure that allows for a token to appear immediately after purchase. At launch, this feature will support Ethereum and Polygon but other networks will be added in the future. 

With a noncustodial wallet, users hold assets themselves rather than a centralized entity and provide unrestricted access to the DeFi ecosystem.

With its new iteration of the wallet, Coinbase wants to target a more mainstream audience than its previous web3 early adopter demographic, the head of Coinbase Wallet Siddharth Coelho-Prabhu said in an interview with The Block. This is despite the fact that it could expose them to volatility in the current DeFi market, which continues to reel from the shock of recent market events including the May collapse of the Terra blockchain.

"With this wave, we're targeting a mainstream audience. Users are expecting the same kind of high-quality and polished experience as they have with fintech or in social media," he said. "We are now trying to cater to people who have never heard of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) or don't know what decentralized exchanges (DEXs) are." 

Unlike Robinhood's upcoming self-custodial wallet, however, there are no plans with this redesign to cover the cost of gas fees. Instead, Coinbase has added what it sees as scalable blockchains such as the new addition of Solana, with support already in place for Ethereum layer two solutions such as Optimism and Polygon. 

The announcement comes a week after the company announced an employee cull. The public cryptocurrency exchange cut 18% of its workforce, citing volatility in the market. Its stock fluctuated downwards by 5% in response to the news.

Earlier today, The Block reported that its share price dropped as Binance's US arm announced it would eliminate trading fees for certain bitcoin pairs.