On Tuesday, October 23rd, the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS) through its Financial Services Superintendent Maria T. Vullo announced that it had approved the application of Coinbase Custody Trust Company LLC to operate as a limited purpose trust company. What this means is that Coinbase Global, Inc., will be able to offer custody services for virtual currencies.
Coinbase had made an application to store six digital assets including Ethereum [ETH] and Bitcoin [BTC] for institutional investors that needed storage services for their large investments. In total, the DFS approved Coinbase to offer custody services for ETH, BTC, Ripple’s XRP, Litecoin [LTC], Bitcoin Cash [BCH] and Ethereum Classic [ETC].
During the announcement, Vullo said:
“New York continues to be a leader in creating, fostering, and responsibly regulating a financial services marketplace that promotes innovation, safeguards the industry and protects consumers through strong supervision. Today’s approval further demonstrates that the state regulatory system is the best arena in which to responsibly supervise the growing FinTech industry within a sound and compliant framework.”
It is noteworthy to mention that Ripple’s XRP virtual currency was included in the request for custody by Coinbase when the digital asset has not yet been listed for trade in the Coinbase consumer exchange. The exchange lists the other five mentioned cryptocurrencies and most recently it listed 0x (ZRX) Ethereum token. Back in August, Coinbase announced that it was considering adding 37 cryptocurrencies to the Coinbase Custody Trust Company.
Coinbase’s Chief Operating Officer was especially jubilant about the announcement saying that,
“The New York State Limited Purpose Trust charter, which now enables Coinbase Custody to act as a Qualified Custodian for crypto assets, builds on our unparalleled success as a crypto custodian while holding the company to the same exacting fiduciary standards and oversight of other, mature financial institutions operating in New York.”
Cryptocurrency custody services are part of Coinbase’s new range of cryptocurrency products aimed at the institutional investors market that seeks to unlock as much as $10 billion that seeks to be part of the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
