*By Madison Alworth* The most popular Bitcoin trading platform announced changes Tuesday that were designed to attract institutional investors to its exchange. Coinbase, the six-year-old digital currency platform, said it was launching four new initiatives, including a secure way to store crypto assets, something institutional clients had long requested. "We really pride ourselves on being the most trusted, the most secure venue, within the cryptocurrency space," said Eric Scro, Coinbase's vice president of finance. The storage feature, called Coinbase Custody, is accepting applications as of Tuesday. Institutions who want to participate must have at least $10 million in deposits. The company also introduced a Prime service that gives institutional investors more traditional investing tools and controls; a Markets product that creates a centralized pool of liquidity; and an Institutional Coverage Group that provides client services like sales, research, and market operations. With more than 20 million accounts, Coinbase is the most popular exchange for Bitcoin and other digital currencies, but it faces stiff competition from ambitious rivals such as Robinhood. That free stock market trading platform [recently announced](http://fortune.com/2018/05/10/robinhood-stock-crypto-trading/) $363 million in new funding, some of which will go toward building a cryptocurrency trading product by the end of the year. The [New York Stock Exchange](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/07/technology/bitcoin-new-york-stock-exchange.html) is reportedly interested in developing a crypto exchange too. "We at Coinbase, we view ourselves as the cryptocurrency place, the cryptocurrency company," Scro said in an interview Tuesday with Cheddar. "And yes, there is going to be competition, but we welcome that competition." Scro said that the interest in cryptocurrency that he has seen from institutional investors and would-be rivals like the NYSE is a sign of "the evolution and the maturation of the asset class." For full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/coinbase-goes-after-a-new-customer).

Share:
More In Business
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Helping Fuel the Return to Work
On this episode of On the Job, Mark Bowen, General Manager at Midnight Sun in San Francisco, discusses how the pandemic affected LGBTQ+ nightlife and the return to work for service industry workers; Drew Lewis, VP Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion & Talent, ADP, breaks down how DE&I practices can drive greater business value and how organizations can effectively create an action plan for supporting DE&I in the workplace.
Stocks Close Lower on the Last Trading Day of the Month, But S&P and Dow Both Rose in May
Stocks closed lower to end the last trading day of May, but the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones both rose over the past month. The Federal Reserve in early May raised interest rates by half a percentage point as it tries to fight inflation, but the question continues to linger: will we enter a recession as we try to tame inflation? Anthony Saccaro, Founder & President of Providence Financial, joins Closing Bell to discuss today's close, the possibility of a recession, where he is telling clients to look for opportunities, and more.
State of the Semiconductor Industry: One Company Scoops Up a Cloud Computing Firm, While Others Lower Outlook, Prepare to Raise Prices
The semiconductor industry is at an inflection point as it tries to fully recover from the worst of pandemic-era headwinds. While Broadcom has announced it will buy cloud computing company VMware, Nvidia is lowering its current quarterly outlook. Meanwhile, TSMC and Intel are contemplating raising prices -- again -- thanks to higher materials costs. Where does the industry go from here? Ted Mortonson, technology strategist at Baird, joins Closing Bell to discuss.
Load More