Y Combinator, Base and Coinbase Ventures Launch ‘Fintech 3.0’ as Finance Goes On-Chain

What to know:

• Y Combinator’s Fintech 3.0 invites founders to build financial services on-chain in partnership with Base and Coinbase Ventures
• Focus areas include stablecoins, tokenization of assets and consumer-facing apps and AI-powered agents

Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley startup incubator behind Airbnb, Coinbase and Stripe, is collaborating with Base and Coinbase Ventures to create the next wave of so-called “Fintech 3.0” companies, according to a blog post on Tuesday.

The firms have opened applications to these "Fintech 3.0" companies, saying it is looking for themes such as expanding stablecoins beyond the dollar into local currencies, tokenizing assets such as stocks and credit markets and building consumer-facing applications including AI-driven financial agents.

This is part of these companies' continuing efforts to move the financial industry on-chain. A prime example of this is Base, the Ethereum overlay blockchain attached to Coinbase which recently partnered with Shopify to offer global USDC payments.

“Our mission at Base is to build a global economy that increases innovation, creativity, and freedom. To do this, we need more founders to build on-chain businesses so that anyone, anywhere can participate in the global economy,” the blog post said.

The initiative comes as U.S. lawmakers move to clarify rules for crypto. The GENIUS Act, a new U.S. law governing stablecoins, aims to bring federal clarity by directing regulators to come up with specific rules for stablecoin issuers. U.S. lawmakers continue to work on broader crypto market structure legislation as well.