Coinbase Says Samsung Wallet Deal to Make Crypto Mainstream

Watch more: Digital Shift: Coinbase, Mark Troianovski

For much of the last decade, crypto existed in a parallel universe. Its champions spoke the language of disruption and decentralization, promising to rebuild the global financial system from the ground up. But while enthusiasts coded and evangelized, the rest of the world remained skeptical watching headlines of volatility, hacks, and the spectacular collapse of players like FTX.

Now, in a quieter but more consequential phase, crypto is taking a new path: legitimacy through association. The most ambitious companies in the sector are no longer trying to replace the old financial order; they’re partnering with it.

“One of the best ways for us to accomplish our mission is to not do it alone,” Mark Troianovski, director and head of product partnerships at Coinbase, told PYMNTS. “We know that doing it together with brands and partners that people grew up with, brands that have been around much longer than Coinbase or the bitcoin white paper, is key.”

The latest and perhaps most visible example of this strategy is the recent collaboration between Coinbase and Samsung to bring Coinbase One, the company’s premium membership program, into the Samsung Wallet app for U.S. users.

This is not the old model of crypto adoption, where users had to download an exchange app, memorize seed phrases, and navigate the volatility of trading tokens.

“It’s really all about meeting our users where they are,” Troianovski said. “People have come to expect their phones to be a place to store payment credentials, for digital wallets to serve as a kind of financial hub.”

For the 75 million Americans with a Galaxy device, this means the ability to access Coinbase’s ecosystem directly through Samsung’s own digital wallet, including a three-month free trial of Coinbase One and a $25 USDC bonus upon completing a first trade.

Read more: Samsung Wallet Enables Crypto Access via Coinbase One Membership Program

In crypto’s early years, companies prided themselves on their outsider status. Exchanges, wallets and blockchain networks were designed to operate independently of banks and governments. The ideal was sovereignty, financial systems built entirely outside traditional frameworks.

That ethos resonated with early adopters but alienated the mainstream. For the average consumer, the absence of familiar guardrails like FDIC protection, customer support lines, or even recognizable logos, was unnerving.

The Samsung collaborations underscore a strategic pivot: crypto no longer needs to shout from the margins. Instead, it is embedding itself in ecosystems people already trust.

As for the reality of the offering, Troianovski frames it as a kind of “choose your own adventure in crypto.” Users can send payments in USDC to friends, split bills, explore decentralized finance, or even “take a loan out against your bitcoin.”

“We actually recently surpassed a billion dollars’ worth of loans originated,” Troianovski added, noting Coinbase’s aim to make crypto holdings more dynamic and less static. “You don’t have to sell your bitcoin to have spending power.”

Crypto here is not an abstraction or ideology; it’s utility.

“We are excited about the aspect of utility with crypto,” he said. “That’s where we hope it goes.”

The significance is subtle but transformative. Crypto is no longer an activity; it’s a feature. It’s moving from being a separate ecosystem to becoming a layer within the existing financial stack.

This all matters because financial behavior is shaped by context. When crypto sits alongside credit cards and loyalty points, it becomes familiar, even mundane. The psychological distance between “traditional money” and “digital assets” shrinks.

“What we take pride in is being the most trusted crypto exchange, the easiest bridge into the crypto economy,” Troianovski said. “We want to make it easy for people to understand all these developments and see new ways to use their crypto that they didn’t know about a year ago.”

At the same time, the company’s partnerships reinforce a feedback loop: the more established brands it works with, the more legitimate it becomes; the more legitimate it becomes, the more partnerships it can secure. In a marketplace still rebuilding its reputation, this loop is invaluable.

A collaboration with Samsung or JPMorgan signals not only technical capability but also institutional approval. And in the post-crisis market, that approval is the ultimate currency. 

Mark Troianovski, director and head of product partnerships at Coinbase, leads the team providing global coverage for Consumer, Institutional, and Platform Product Groups.

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