Coinbase VP Hopes to Lure Institutional Investors With New Crypto Products
*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).
Microsoft announced on Tuesday it's acquiring video game publisher Activision Blizzard for nearly $70 billion in cash, a company that's is known for big titles like "Call of Duty" and "World of Warcraft." Lyron Bentovim, Glimpse Group president and CEO, and Dan Ives, managing director and senior equity research analyst at Wedbush, sat down to talk about what Ives called "a shot across the bow" towards the competition. "This is pretty exciting for the industry as a whole because another one of the big players is coming to the metaverse," said Bentovim. "Microsoft using metaverse in the quote from their CEO in their press release shows the importance of this deal."
Netflix may not be staying at the top of the streaming wars, according to some wary investors, as competition heats up and it raises prices yet again. Tuna Amobi, director and senior equity analyst at CFRA Research, spoke with Cheddar about what investors should be considering should they stick with the streaming pioneer or drop the investment. "I think it's always mostly about the subscriber growth for the Q4, which is going to be an indicator of how the company has been navigating the speed bumps that we saw early in the year," said Amobi.
L’Oréal is doubling down on its investment in tech. The French beauty giant unveiled two new high-tech products ahead of CES 2022, aimed at simplifying the hair coloring process. Guive Balooch, global vice president of L’Oréal Technology Incubator, joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss the company's innovations for hair coloring, including the Colorsonic application device and the Coloright AI diagnostic tool.
Walmart is one of the latest companies looking to adapt to the emerging digital economy by possibly establishing its own cryptocurrency. The retail giant filed at least seven applications with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, including one for blockchain assets.
Inflation in the U.S. is only getting hotter. The 12-month inflation rate for December 2021 was the highest in nearly 40 years - continuing the trend seen at the close of 2021.
The Consumer Price Index increased 7% in the 12-month period ending in December, marking the fastest increase since 1982. Scott Wren, Senior Global Market Strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute, joined Cheddar's Movers for more.
