Institutional Crypto Space Develops as Coinbase Launches Custody Service

Since its creation in June 2012, Coinbase has continually cemented itself as one of the best consumer-centric cryptocurrency services. But with its recent launch of Coinbase Custody, the popular company intends to make a positive impact on incoming institutional investors. Coinbase Custody aims to secure the business of institutional investors, by providing reliable cold storage options for these customers.

Bloomberg reports that the cryptocurrency service provider has already accepted deposits from ten hedge funds and family offices, all within its first week of operation. Coinbase’s aspirations don’t end there, with the firm hoping to take on 100 institutional clients, managing a collective value of $5 billion in crypto assets come January.

Some were shocked that institutional clients would place such a large amount of trust on one firm, but a blog post from Sam Mcingvale, product lead at Coinbase Custody, shows that Coinbase is prepped for the incoming investment. The post read:
“Over the past six years, Coinbase has pioneered leading crypto storage techniques and is currently responsible for the custody of more than $20 billion in crypto assets. Coinbase Custody builds on this expertise to offer a brand new, independent solution for our institutional customers.”

This new service will only be accepting investors with a minimum balance of $10 million, charging a 0.1% fee on a monthly basis and $100,000 on set-up.

To ensure the security of funds, Coinbase will enlist a variety of unique security techniques. The aforementioned blog post gave four unique features which will help to secure funds, listing:

On-chain segregation of crypto assets
Split, offline private keys that require a quorum of geographically distributed agents to use cryptographic hardware to sign transactions
Multiple layers of security
Robust cold storage auditing and reporting