Anthony Harvey / Stringer
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong
- Coinbase rolled out 4 new tools that are tailor-made for bigger financial institutions.
- The tools include security offerings and a platform for institutional investors called Coinbase Prime.
When cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase launched in 2012, it was laser-focused on attracting individual investors to trade bitcoin. But years later, and after branching into other cryptocurrencies like ethereum, the San Francisco-based company is once again broadening its product offerings.
This time, its sights are set on Wall Street.
On Tuesday, the company announced the launch of four services, all centered on attracting financial institutions to its platform. The new tools include options like Coinbase Custody, a custodian partnership similar to the custodian offerings typically provided by banks to secure customers' cash, and Coinbase Prime, a platform centered on research and market data geared toward institutional clients.
Coinbase's focus on attracting interest from bigger financial institutions started sometime last year, when general manager Adam White announced the company's intentions to build out a future custodian service.
"When we speak with [financial] institutions, they tell us that the number one thing preventing them from getting started is the existence of a digital asset custodian that they can trust to store client funds securely," White wrote in a Medium post.
Already, the company's tailor-made security offerings have snagged partnerships with cryptoasset investment firms like Walden Capital and Boost VC.
"Our goal is to invest in the emerging digital asset space," Coinbase Custody product lead Sam McIngvale told Business Insider. "We see ourselves as hoping to bring the infrastructure that's needed, and bring more investments to the space."
While McIngvale said that the company's offerings might not yet be ready to bring on traditional heavyweight Wall Street investors, he did say that in the future, Coinbase hopes to attract a number of various financial institutions.
"As a whole, Coinbase is moving toward an open financial system, and we plan to achieve that through a number of different means," said McIngvale.
Coinbase isn't the only cryptocurrency platform that's hoping to make its mark on the established financial market. Platforms like Gemini and Circle have also introduced iterations of their platform focused on handling bigger deals, which means that there might be more in store for big institutions looking to enter the crypto market in the near future.
