Cryptocurrency giant Coinbase is considering the idea to pay interest on at least some of its accounts

This means a lot of new concepts showing up on a regular basis, and one such concept recently arrived at cryptocurrency giant Coinbase.

Cryptocurrency exchange giant Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) saw its shares rise nearly 5% in Wednesday afternoon’s trading after the company’s CEO Brian Armstrong highlighted the idea to pay interest on at least some of its accounts.

This comes as the thought of earning 5% on a Bitcoin stash might sound like a novel prospect to many, but it seems that it is not what Armstrong had in mind with this push.

Instead, while speaking to the House Financial Services Committee, Armstrong described the need to offer interest to those who hold stablecoins. Stablecoins are those coins that are pegged to a fiat currency or a commodity like gold. But Armstrong did not limit his suggested addition to just Coinbase.

He went on to call for all cryptocurrency services to be able to offer interest to stablecoin holders.

According to him, Americans can earn about 4.5% on their money with Treasury bills, but only about 0.14% on savings accounts. Meanwhile, he added that holding a stablecoin gets no interest at all.

Therefore, Armstrong felt that legislation should support the idea of offering interest on stablecoins to help draw users’ attention to them, especially since, by design, the surges in value that non-stablecoins offer is not there.

Elon Musk's X Shows Support In Coinbase User's Case

In other news, a Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) user's fight in the Supreme Court, with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) coming for it over a matter of user data, got a little support today from Elon Musk's X (NYSE:TSLA).

The user, who had his transaction data handed over by Coinbase to the IRS as part of a probe that took on over 14,000 people, claimed that the apex court should hear the case again to limit the government's ability to access such data without having “proper legal justification,” according to a report by Bloomberg.

And X, for its part, filed a brief that called on the Supreme Court to not allow the government to access such data without having “proper legal justification,” the report noted.

Now matters are largely in the Supreme Court’s hands, with reports suggesting that it coming down on the side of the user would “…limit how much access law enforcement has to user data.”

Is Coinbase a Buy, Sell or Hold?

Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Moderate Buy consensus rating on COIN stock based on 11 Buys and nine Holds assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After an 27.46% loss in its share price over the past year, the average COIN price target of $330.79 per share implies 80.99% upside potential.

See more COIN analyst ratings