- Coinbase hosts football matches and networking receptions in Germany.
- Exchange hopes white glove treatment will win over sceptical investors.
Denny Morawiak says he’s been to Borussia Dortmund’s football stadium more times in the last six months than he has in his whole life.
It’s not because the native of Saxony is a diehard fan of the Bundesliga’s second-most decorated club.
Instead, Morawiak, Coinbase’s top exec in Germany, is rewarding some of the European nation’s highest earners for investing in Bitcoin and other digital assets.
Besides taking in matches and touring Borussia Dortmund’s historic ground, he’s also throwing other splashy events to get clients to spread the word.
“They tell me they have a friend who basically needs more white glove service before joining. Or another friend who didn’t understand the tax implications,” Morawiak told DL News in an exclusive interview on Tuesday.
“At Coinbase, we should be addressing these concerns.”
Risk averse
As Europe’s biggest economy, Germany is a prize for any market exchange or investment firm. But getting affluent Germans to buy and sell Bitcoin won’t be easy.
Germans are known in the asset management industry for their particular aversion to risk.
Unlike Americans or even other Europeans, German households prize savings, shun debt, and favour safe assets such as government bonds over stocks and crypto.
In 2024, Germany’s savings rate was 20%, according to Eurostat.
The US rate was less than 5% in April 2025, according to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Germans have also been slow to embrace Bitcoin and its ilk.
About 8% of the German population holds cryptocurrency, according to estimates from Triple-A, a crypto payments firm.
That is well below the UK, where a quarter of the population is purportedly in the digital assets market, according to crypto exchange Gemini.
Robust pensions
Germans have also enjoyed a robust pension system that is largely insulated from the volatility of capital markets and has historically been a sure thing for many retirees.
“The money I contribute right now goes directly to my grandparents,” Morawiak said. “I’m not as interested in what’s happening with the money because I know it’s already going to the current pensioners.”
He also said financial education and German culture just don’t put a priority on taking on market risk.
Memecoins
So, how is Morawiak going to convince Germans to buy everything from Bitcoin to memecoins such as PopCat, a $289 million cryptocurrency on Solana inspired by a picture of a wide-mouthed cat?
Surely, these assets won’t find a place in German portfolios, right?
“I would not advise people to build a pension based on memecoins,” Morawiak, a former associate partner at McKinsey & Company, the global consulting firm.
If many Germans missed the boat on investing in equities, the Coinbase exec is hoping to convince them to generate personal wealth through cryptocurrencies.
“We’re a rich country with big companies, but we are a country of relatively unwealthy people,” he said. “It’s a pity.”
Now, he is targeting a network of high-net-worth individuals and asking what it would take to increase their activity in digital assets.
Lavish events
“There are people that have created wealth already, many of them through entrepreneurship, and many of them are already diversified into crypto,” he said. “But there’s an even bigger group that is not yet in.”
Sometimes clients call him directly on the phone.
At other times, it’s through lavish events, such as watching top-flight German football.
The crypto exchange has been a sponsor of Borussia Dortmund since 2023, offering a match day box sweepstakes and an educational campaign for the club’s employees.
The company doesn’t own a suite, a representative told DL News.
In the coming weeks, he’s hosting another exclusive event for some of the platform’s power users.
The strategy?
More of the same.
“Loyalty, growth, and referral,” Morawiak said.
Liam Kelly is a DeFi Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email at liam@dlnews.com.
