Coinbase Borrow / Onchain lending
Designing confidence during market volatility.
I led the design of liquidation protection for Coinbase Borrow: a way to automatically add collateral when a crypto-backed loan approaches its liquidation threshold.
As Borrow grew, volatile markets made liquidation risk harder to ignore. If collateral lost too much value, it could be sold to repay the loan. A warning could flag that risk, but it could not help borrowers protect their position before prices moved again.
We had to make an automatic collateral top-up feel understandable and controlled, while fitting it into a new onchain actions platform without slowing down the existing loan flow.
I designed an opt-in setup that showed when protection would trigger and let borrowers choose how much collateral could move. Clear top-up limits and loan-to-value markers made the tradeoff visible before they authorized it.
Keeping protection visible in the loan view let borrowers check and manage it after setup, so they knew what they had enabled.
The work became part of a broader loan protection kit, alongside a way to add collateral directly onchain. The team reported $XXM+ in assets safeguarded, while Borrow reached $XB+ in loan originations.
