The Future of Financial Management: How Coast is Bridging TradFi and DeFi
In a recent episode of The Financial Frontier, host Patrick Camuso sat down with Dan Derning and Ruston Kevel, co-founders of Coast, to discuss their innovative platform that’s addressing one of the most pressing challenges in modern personal finance: managing the increasingly complex world of hybrid portfolios that span both traditional and digital assets.
The Genesis of Coast
The inspiration for Coast came from a common pain point experienced by many crypto investors. As Ruston explained, managing his financial life became increasingly complicated as he delved deeper into digital assets. With 13 different apps needed to track everything from traditional bank accounts and mortgages to various crypto wallets across multiple blockchains, getting a clear picture of his financial health became nearly impossible.
Like many others, he attempted to solve this through complex spreadsheets, pulling in APIs from Google Finance. However, this solution fell short when it came to tracking digital assets, particularly NFTs. This fragmentation of financial information is what Coast aims to solve, providing users with a comprehensive view of their entire financial portfolio, regardless of whether assets are traditional or digital.
Bridging Two Financial Worlds
Coast positions itself at what Dan cleverly describes as “the intersection of TradFi and DeFi,” where the coastline represents traditional finance and the deep blue sea represents Web3, crypto, and DeFi. The platform offers impressive coverage, connecting to 95% of traditional financial institutions and an equally extensive range of blockchain networks and centralized exchanges.
What sets Coast apart is its user-friendly approach to connecting digital assets. Unlike many crypto platforms, it doesn’t require users to sign transactions or directly connect wallets. Instead, it uses blockchain readers and specific APIs to safely track assets across the crypto ecosystem.
Three Key Features
- Comprehensive Dashboard: The platform provides users with a detailed breakdown of their financial picture, including net worth, assets, liabilities, and visual representations of staked and unstaked assets.
- Compass: This feature helps users think through long-term financial planning, covering everything from retirement and savings to housing, family, career, and estate planning – all while incorporating digital assets into the equation.
- Partner Services Portal: Coast connects users with crypto-specialized professionals, including CPAs, financial advisors, estate planners, and charitable giving platforms.
Early Traction and Market Response
Despite being just 2.5 months into their open beta, Coast is already tracking over $13 million in assets across traditional finance and DeFi. The platform has attracted interest not just from individual investors but also from financial planners, hedge funds, and crypto wallets interested in white-label solutions.
The Estate Planning Challenge
One of the most intriguing aspects of Coast’s mission is their focus on solving the critical challenge of crypto estate planning. With over $200 billion in digital assets already lost due to inadequate succession planning, this is a pressing issue that the industry has largely ignored.
The challenge is particularly complex because digital assets function more like cash in cryptographic form, making traditional estate planning methods insufficient. Coast is working on solutions to help users organize and communicate their digital asset information to beneficiaries, while maintaining the security and decentralized nature of these assets.
Market Outlook and Industry Trends
The timing for Coast couldn’t be better. We’re seeing unprecedented retail interest in investing and portfolio self-management over the past 5-6 years. With 93 million Americans now owning digital assets, there’s a growing need for tools that can help these investors make better decisions and understand their risk profiles.
The founders are optimistic about the industry’s future, particularly given recent political developments showing bipartisan support for crypto regulation. They see the next year as potentially one of the biggest for crypto, not just in terms of asset appreciation but also in establishing a clearer regulatory framework that could help make the U.S. a leader in the space.
The Professional Gap
One of the most significant challenges highlighted in the discussion was the massive skill gap in the professional services sector when it comes to crypto expertise. While millions of Americans now own digital assets, there are very few financial professionals who truly understand how to handle them.
This creates an enormous opportunity for forward-thinking professionals willing to invest in learning about digital assets. As Ruston emphasized, those who start building their crypto expertise now will likely capture significant market share as traditional clients increasingly need guidance on their digital asset holdings.
Looking Ahead
Coast represents a new generation of financial tools designed for the reality of modern investing, where traditional and digital assets coexist in personal portfolios. As the crypto industry continues to mature and mainstream adoption grows, platforms like Coast will play a crucial role in helping both individual investors and professionals navigate this hybrid financial landscape.
The team’s focus on solving real problems, particularly around portfolio management and estate planning, positions them well to serve the growing number of investors who need better tools to manage their increasingly complex financial lives. As the industry continues to evolve, Coast’s approach to bridging the traditional and digital financial worlds may well become the standard for modern portfolio management.
