Coinbase has always wanted its main business of cryptocurrency trading to be taken just as seriously by the establishment as securities and they’re doing their best to make this happen. The company has recently acquired Keystone Capital, a securities dealer whose inclusion in the Coinbase basket of assets could let the company expand its operations into a fusion with non-crypto financial markets.
Coinbase posted about this deal on its own blog just yesterday and explained that it’s on its way to becoming a full regulated broker for normal securities and potentially even innovative new crypto-derived blockchain investment assets.
All of these plans are of course dependent on approval of Conbase’s regulated broker-dealer status by the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Authority (FINRA). The crypto exchange has however obtained a broker-dealer license, called a B-D; an alternative trading system license, called an ATS; and a registered investment adviser (RIA) license as part of the above process.
The San Francisco-based company commented on the complexity of navigating U.S regulatory policy in the blockchain assets sphere, as it stated in its June 6th blog post:
“There are now many types of blockchain-based digital assets, from cryptocurrencies to security tokens to collectibles. In the United States, some of these assets will be subject to SEC oversight. With this in mind, securing these licenses will bring us a step closer to our goal, which is to be the most trusted way for our customers to buy, sell, and use many different types of crypto assets.”
As Coinbase itself further explains though, their purchase of Keystone Capital has allowed them to pass much more smoothly through the financial regulatory gauntlet described above and the company could now hypothetically even offer non-crypto securities trading services at some point down the road.
Coinbase’s license acquisitions and purchase of Keystone aren’t the only steps the company has taken towards formal expansions. In April the company also bought digital email payments processing firm Earn.com and even took Earn’s founder, Balaji Srinivasan onboard as coinbases first Chief Technology officer.
Beyond the Earn.com purchase there were moves such as the May 24th purchase of Paradex, a small company whose technology allows Coinbase to offer hundreds more cryptocoins to its roughly 20 million users. Up to this point, trading on Coinbase was limited strictly to the big four coins: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash.
Further expansions into the crypto coin market are expected in 2018 and Coinbase has also earmarked $15 million for their incubator program, Coinbase Ventures, which is aimed at supporting other innovative blockchain startups that Coinbase could later swallow up as well.
Coinbase is currently one of the world’s absolute largest cryptocurrency trading entities, with over $150 billion in token assets under management and millions of users. Startup watchers have valued it at over $8 billion and it has even been named as a major disruptor in the financial industry by CNBC.
