Ethereum switching to Casper will need Coinbase to support it
In my opinion a make or break feature for Ethereum (and for speculators) will be whether or not Coinbase will pay the interest and allow staking. Now before people say "but this violates the whole point" and these people are right because Coinbase in a way is centralized, I do think there is a way to do it where control of the private key is with the owner. Vitalik recently mentioned it will be possible to stake Ether using a cold wallet.
Watch the video from Vitalik for some details:
Casper FFG will be the first iteration of this transition to proof of stake. According to the developers the interest will be between 0-5% a year (unofficial). In my opinion this is fairly low but it is enough that some people will do if it's above 5%. The reason being, there are stocks which pay interest above 5% with lower risk and maintenance cost than to hold Ethereum. On the other hand if the price of Ethereum is going up at over 20% per year (most stocks don't grow this fast) then it does make a lot of sense to take 5% interest if you can be sure your principal is growing in dollar value.
Coinbase is perfectly positioned here
If Coinbase were to offer to let users stake their Ethereum for a very small fee each time the users cash out then Coinbase can win big time. This would encourage more people to buy Ethereum and hold it in Coinbase. It being held in Coinbase and gaining interest means there will be people who will eventually sell Ether to spend the interest which Coinbase can take a fee from without touching the principal. Coinbase could position themselves as Google currently is, which is the most trusted regulated exchange in the United States where most Ethereum stakers go to stake their crypto.
Users don't want to worry about how to keep the computer online and probably would look to outsource it to others. Users in theory who outsource it to Coinbase will have to trust Coinbase to keep the computer up and running on their behalf. Important to note also is that tax compliance can be made effortless if Coinbase allows users to do it this way but it is questionable whether or not staking interest will get the dividend tax rate or the income tax rate (this distinction matters for cost benefit analysis).
Reference
https://twitter.com/RyanSAdams/status/994232433552871425?s=09
- RyanSAdams