During an on-stage discussion at Consensus, Brian Armstrong, CEO of major United States cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, said that its custody service has already received $1 billion in crypto under management. Coindesk reported on Armstrong’s comments on Wednesday, May 15.
Panel moderator and Wall Street Journal reporter Paul Vigna asked Armstrong about the perspectives of institutional investments in the crypto industry. In response, the Coinbase CEO provided an example of his own company, noting that Coinbase Custody managed to get $1 billion in assets under management in just 12 months after its launch. He also mentioned that 70 institutions signed up to the service during that period.
Moreover, Armstrong believes that investments in the sphere will grow rapidly, as institutions want their funds to be active while in custody. The Coinbase CEO stated that institutions want their funds to stake, vote and do governance on-chain.
As for the most popular asset among the institutional investors, Armstrong thinks that bitcoin (BTC) is still at the top of the list. However, the interest in other coins is growing too, which is why Coinbase currently provides 30 altcoins for institutions, he noted.
Finally, Armstrong mentioned that Coinbase Pro — an upgraded trading platform for advanced users — currently has more than 60% of its trading volume coming from institutions. The company is also interested in the idea of a self-custody solution, and is discussing the matter with Israeli-based startup StarkWare.
As Cointelegraph previously reported, Coinbase officially launched its custody for institutional investors last July. Back then, the company revealed that it would enable its new institutional clients “to participate in the crypto ecosystem through proof of stake and distributed governance.”
Just yesterday, the U.S. exchange made a major announcement concerning the expansion of its services to 50 more jurisdictions, such as Brazil, South Africa and Taiwan, among others. Moreover, Coinbase expanded the trade of USD Coin (USDC) to customers in 85 jurisdictions.
