- Coinbase, the cryptocurrency exchange, is launching a venture fund, the company announced in a blog post Thursday.
- The San Francisco-based company has been building out its business outside trading, breaking into custody, and now VC investing.
- For now, it will not invest in security tokens.
Coinbase, the cryptocurrency trading platform valued at $1.6 billion, is launching a venture fund that will invest in companies changing the world of finance, the company announced in a blog post Thursday.
Coinbase Ventures will provide “financing to promising early stage companies that have the teams and ideas that can move the space forward in a positive, meaningful way,” the post said.
“Here at Coinbase, we’re committed to creating an open financial system for the world,” the company said.
The company will not invest in security tokens at this moment, it said.
It stands to reason that Coinbase is jumping on the VC bandwagon, since the company is likely sitting on a ton of cash. As reported by Recode, the company’s revenues in 2017 were over $1 billion.
To be sure, Coinbase isn’t the only crypto exchange making money hand-over-fist. As Bloomberg reported, the top ten largest crypto exchanges rake in $3 million in fees a day.
Still, Coinbase has been one of the most aggressive exchanges when it comes to venturing outside of trading.
The firm’s general manager Dan Romero recently told Business Insider’s Becky Peterson that it is hiring more C-level executives, who Romero hopes will transform the company into a behemoth touching all aspects of crypto.
“We’re trying to build a Google-like company for the cryptocurrency space,” Romero said at the time.
Coinbase, which first started offering services for Wall Street firms in 2014 via its GDAX exchange, has recently been gunning for more institutional business in crypto. GDAX is at the core of that mission.
But the firm has also announced the launch of Coinbase Custodian, a custodian product for the crypto space which the firm is trying to scale to be the “State Street of cryptocurrency.”
As Business Insider previously reported, the service will provide institutional clients a method to store their cryptocurrency that offers the same level of security as custody banks such as State Street. It’ll only be available to customers with at least $10 million in deposits.
GDAX is also working on other products and services, including advanced order types and products tied to market data.
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