Coinbase Introduces OTC Crypto Trading for Institutional Investors

United States crypto exchange and wallet provider Coinbase has introduced over-the-counter (OTC) trading for institutional customers.

This is according to a report made by live streaming financial news network Cheddar.

As opposed to transacting through a crypto exchange itself, over-the-counter crypto trading would let institutional investors do direct trades between one another.

Christine Sandler, the head of sales at Coinbase, remarked that the move is taking place in conjunction with rise in demand for OTC crypto trading from institutional players, considering leveraging both exchange and OTC business as a “huge benefit” to their customers.

Sandler said:

“We launched our OTC business as a complement to our exchange business because we found a lot of institutions were using OTC as an on-ramp for crypto trading.”

Sandler also disclosed that the OTC service is to be assimilated with Coinbase Custody, a service crypto custodian tool for institutional investors introduced on July 2, 2018.

The exchange has also began letting its clients trade any asset that is available on institutional investing platform Coinbase Prime, as well as launched several more order books options, which includes web interface, Skype, Bloomberg IB, email, or phone.

Coinbase started the process to become a fully regulated broker dealer by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to offer several crypto-related services such as OTC, margin and crypto securities trading, and new market data products. To make this work, Coinbase obtained securities dealer Keystone Capital Corp. as well as Venovate Marketplace, Inc., and Digital Wealth LLC in June.