Coinbase Partners With Samsung to Onboard 75M+ Galaxy Users in the U.S.

• Coinbase is expanding its reach by giving Samsung Galaxy users complimentary access to Coinbase One, paired with seamless integration into Samsung Pay.
• The integration allows users to trade crypto, earn staking rewards, and make payments directly, without needing a separate app.

Coinbase, a leading cryptocurrency exchange platform based in the United States, founded in 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam, and Samsung have announced their partnership to bring crypto access directly into the Samsung Galaxy ecosystem. According to the agreement, this partnership will benefit more than 75 million Galaxy users in the United States.

For the first time, Galaxy owners will be able to use Coinbase One seamlessly through the Samsung Wallet app. This now removes the need to download a separate Coinbase app or transfer assets across different platforms.

The integration extends into Samsung Pay as well, meaning users can make everyday purchases backed by their crypto holdings, further blurring the line between digital assets and traditional payments.

Perks for Galaxy Users

To kick things off, U.S. Galaxy users are being offered a three-month free trial of Coinbase One (Preferred Tier), giving them access to zero trading fees (within set limits), higher staking rewards, priority customer support, and extra account protection.

Some eligible users will also receive a $25 USDC credit once they complete their first trade, adding another incentive for newcomers to get started. Coinbase describes this rollout as the largest single consumer distribution initiative in the company’s history, underscoring the significant impact the partnership will have on mainstream adoption.

On the security side, the integration relies on Samsung Knox, the company’s proprietary hardware-based security architecture. Through Knox, user assets and data are protected with on-device encryption, tokenization, and biometric authentication, ensuring that Galaxy users have a secure environment for storing and transacting with crypto.

The unified Samsung Wallet experience now allows users to store IDs, bank cards, keys, and digital assets all in one place. This will now effectively combine identity, payments, and crypto into a single network.

“Samsung Wallet is a trusted tool to millions of Galaxy users, and we’re continually working to find creative ways to enhance the experience with added functionality. Coinbase is a leader in the industry, which made them the ideal partner to provide our users with seamless access to crypto,” Drew Blackard, Senior Vice President of Mobile Product Management at Samsung Electronics America, stated.

This partnership extends Samsung’s efforts in the digital asset space. In 2021, South Korea’s leading telecom operator SKT launched the Samsung Blockchain Keystore through its T Store marketplace, debuting a built-in crypto wallet on the Galaxy S10.

As highlighted in our previous news brief in July, Coinbase enabled Samsung Pay as a funding option for crypto purchases within the Coinbase app across the U.S. and Canada.

In other news, Coinbase has submitted an application to the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for a National Trust Company Charter. A step that aligns it with a growing list of crypto firms pursuing the same license, like Circle, which applied for a national trust bank license on July 1, and Ripple Labs filed its own application just days later.

The exchange says securing the charter is central to its goal of connecting the crypto economy with traditional finance, as it would allow Coinbase to broaden its offerings beyond custody and into payments and other financial services.