Coinbase sees money pouring in from institutional investors, according to Adam White, the exchange's vice president and general manager. White told CNBC's Fast Money that institutional interest is bec
Coinbase sees money pouring in from institutional investors, according to Adam White, the exchange's vice president and general manager. White told CNBC's Fast Money that institutional interest is becoming a major force in the crypto market, a shift from the retail-dominated landscape of previous years. "The institutional conversations have become more and more profound," he said.
The San Francisco exchange has been expanding its offerings throughout 2018. Last Friday, it announced plans to explore adding five altcoins to its current lineup of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and BCH: Cardano (ADA), Basic Attention Token (BAT), Stellar Lumens (XLM), Zcash (ZEC), and 0x (ZRX). Coinbase said it cannot guarantee any of these will be listed and some might arrive with restrictions, such as buy-and-sell-only trading without the ability to withdraw to external wallets.
White outlined Coinbase's broader strategy. "We have a long-term vision for the space," he said. "And we are focused on building the exchange, the wallet, the custodian, that allows capital to move into the space."
The company has moved fast on several fronts. In March, Coinbase announced support for the ERC20 technical standard. It rebranded its GDAX trading platform to Coinbase Pro, positioning it as a cleaner interface for individual traders. The company also acquired Paradex, a platform for trading ERC20 tokens, adding that capability in-house.
Coinbase is also pushing into new geographic markets. The exchange said it would open an office in Japan to provide Japanese crypto investors access to a range of Coinbase's products, citing demand from Asian investors. The move marks a contrast with fellow San Francisco exchange Kraken, which recently said it would stop operating in Japan because costs had become too high.
On the regulatory front, Coinbase won approval to list security tokens after the SEC and FINRA signed off on its acquisition of Keystone Capital Corp., Venovate Marketplace Inc., and Digital Wealth LLC. That makes Coinbase the first federally regulated operator of a crypto securities exchange. The company has also begun accepting deposits into Coinbase Custody, which provides secure storage of crypto assets for institutions in the United States and Europe.
