Coinbase Becoming Custodian For 40 New Altcoins

According to Coinbase’s new announcement, the exchange is looking into adding up to 40 new cryptos to its custody.

Coinbase custody plans

With each passing day, cryptocurrencies are making more and more progress towards mainstream usage. Various large institutions are looking into them, hoping to find a way to implement them into their businesses. For a lot of investors, this represents an excellent opportunity. However, this is also a significant opportunity for businesses like Coinbase itself.

The exchange recognizes this, and they just issued a new announcement, stating their plans to explore and possibly add additional altcoins. The number of cryptos that the company found interesting exceeds 40. Among the coins that are being looked into are XRP, Monero (XMR), Dash, Telegram, and Tezos (XTZ).

According to the law, institutional funds are obligated to use custodians for securing their assets. Custodians, on the other hand, get to charge fees for keeping such assets safe from theft. So far, Coinbase has been acting as a custodian for 4 different coins — Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin.

To keep these assets safe, the exchange was charging $100,000 for a set-up, plus a 0.1% on a monthly basis. Additionally, the custodian’s customers have to store a minimum of $10 million. Through the addition of new assets, Coinbase will also increase its earnings from the custody services that it provides.

Coinbase’s plans for the future

This is important to note that the number of different firms that offer the trade of cryptocurrencies is constantly on the rise. Because of that, the margins are expected to drop in the future, and so the company needs an alternative way of making a profit.

The company’s spokesperson did not reveal any sort of a specific timetable regarding the addition of new coins. In fact, they even stated that there is no guarantee that the exchange will actually add all 40+ of them. All that the company is doing for now is exploring these coins.

Of course, Coinbase is not the only crypto firm that offers custody. Additionally, it is not usually selling a lot of assets that it stores in its role as a custodian. With that in mind, it is still unclear as to how much will this expansion actually help with boosting the company’s earnings.

At the moment, Coinbase’s custody consumers include the likes of Polychain Cap, Autonomous Partners, as well as Multicoin Cap. Its goal is to reach 100 or more institutional customers, as well as to store over $20 billion under custody, preferably before 2019 ends.

In the meanwhile, they also stated that next Tuesday will bring a new addition to its crypto list. Traders will finally get the ability to trade Ethereum Classic. The announcement regarding the addition of this crypto came earlier this year, in June. Ethereum Classic currently holds the 14th rank on CoinMarketCap’s list.

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Disclaimer: This article should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide, investment advice. Global Coin Report and/or its affiliates, employees, writers, and subcontractors are cryptocurrency investors and from time to time may or may not have holdings in some of the coins or tokens they cover. Please conduct your own thorough research before investing in any cryptocurrency and read our full disclaimer.

Image courtesy of Zennie Abraham via Flickr