CoinShares, a company that manages over $1 billion worth of crypto assets is opening up its reserves to a public audit. The service is provided by an accounting firm Armanino, which will be providing an updated state of reservers for various electronically traded products issued by XBT Provider, a CoinShares subsidiary. In a Cointelegraph interview, CoinShares COO Richard Nash said that he hopes this will give it an advantage over its rivals like Grayscale:
“We're able to bring comfort to our stakeholders, whether that be investors or people looking at us through the normal regulatory lens.”
Both Nash and Noah Buxton, blockchain and digital asset practice leader at Armanino, believe that this is the first time ever that an investment firm in this space has opened up its reserves to public scrutiny. XBT Provider offers several exchange-traded products backed with Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) or XRP. The investor can redeem the notes issued by the company for the underlying digital assets minus the fees.
Grayscale’s assets under management are five times the size that of CoinShares. Although the company does not provide a live public audit of its reserves, its entire portfolio is locked away with Coinbase, which serves as its custodian.