Bitcoin (BTC) adoption by institutions has gone from a myth to fact in the past year, the CEO of major cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has said.
“We know the answer” about adoption: Armstrong
Speaking on Twitter Aug. 16, Brian Armstrong said that 2019 had formed the year of reckoning for institutional Bitcoin uptake, with the trend now obvious. He wrote:
“Whether institutions were going to adopt crypto or not was an open question about 12 months ago. I think it's safe to say we now know the answer. We're seeing $200-400M a week in new crypto deposits come in from institutional customers.”
Coinbase becomes world’s largest crypto custodian
Armstrong made the comments hours after Coinbase confirmed its acquisition of the international operations of storage giant Xapo.
The move, as Cointelegraph reported, put Coinbase top of the institutional manager list for crypto with $7 billion of assets under custody.
Despite Bitcoin’s 2019 bull run fizzling in recent weeks, Armstrong remained highly buoyant about the future, as multiple new institutional investment products hit the market.
These mainly include Bitcoin futures offerings, which will come from players such as Bakkt and fellow exchange Binance. A decision on whether to allow a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund is meanwhile due from the United States in October.
“In addition to custody, we’re excited to explore new ways to monetize and leverage crypto assets such as staking, borrowing against crypto portfolios and lending crypto to trusted counterparties,” Coinbase hinted about its future plans in a blog post about the Xapo deal.