After 7 months of waiting since Coinbase Custody was announced, the service is now accepting customer deposits.
Coinbase Custody’s mission is to make digital currency investment accessible to every eligible financial institution and hedge fund in the world. The company plans to achieve this by striving to become the most trusted and easiest-to-use crypto custody service available. Coinbase Custody is a combination of Coinbase’s battle-tested cold storage for crypto assets, an institutional-grade broker-dealer and its reporting services, and a comprehensive client coverage program.
Coinbase currently stores over $20B of crypto assets on behalf of customers and have raised $216M from investors like the NYSE and Union Square Ventures.
Coinbase Custody is designed to meet the needs of institutional clients. Requirements may include:
- Strict financial controls (multiple signers, audit trails, limits, etc)
- Dedicated account representatives and phone support
- SLAs on funds transfers
- A regulated digital currency custodian
- Multi-user accounts with separate permissions
- Support for a wide range of digital assets and currencies
- Insurance (in some cases)
- High levels of cyber and physical security
“If approved, Coinbase will soon be capable of offering blockchain-based securities, under the oversight of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). This step forward is being made possible by our acquisition of a broker-dealer license.”
The launching partners of Coinbase Custody include: Autonomous Partners, boostVC, MetaStable, Multicoin Capital, Polychain Capital, Scalar Capital, Walden Bridge Capital, and others.
Coinbase Custody is exclusively for institutional investors with at least $10 mln on deposit. There is a $100,000 initial setup fee and a fee of 10 basis points per month on all deposits stored on the Coinbase Custody platform.
Reported by Cointelegraph analysts, “In the upcoming months, the Bitcoin market will see a shift in trend, as institutional investors and retail investors begin adopting Bitcoin as a robust store of value and a legitimate financial network. It will be more difficult for public figures and bank executives to offer baseless condemnation of Bitcoin, given the crackdown on major banks this past week on money laundering and fraud charges, and the rapid increase in mainstream adoption of Bitcoin.”