Onboarding Institutional Crypto Investors- Coinbase Helps Execute 'One of the Largest Digital Asset Trades in History'

Over the last year, institutional investors have been flocking toward crypto assets like bitcoin and after Microstrategy’s initial bitcoin purchase, the trending institutional demand for crypto started swelling. On Tuesday, the San Francisco trading platform Coinbase published a study that details how the company helped the firm One River Asset Management make “one of the largest digital asset trades in history.”

Not too long ago, Microstrategy purchased bitcoin (BTC) for treasury reserves, and ever since then, a great number of well known firms have swapped cash and stocks for BTC reserves. For example, the web portal bitcointreasuries.org shows there are now 29 companies holding over 1.5 million BTC worth over $36 billion using today’s exchange rates. Today these firms hold approximately 5.48% of the bitcoin supply. Coinbase revealed that the San Francisco exchange helped facilitate the initial bitcoin (BTC) purchase for Microstrategy and a number of other institutions since then.

“Using our advanced execution capabilities, leading crypto prime brokerage platform, and OTC desk, we were able to buy a significant amount of bitcoin on behalf of Microstrategy and did so without moving the market,” Brett Tejpaul, head of institutional sales at Coinbase stated at the time.

On January 5, 2021, Coinbase explained that it recently worked with the firm One River Asset Management to purchase a substantial, and undisclosed amount of digital assets. Enough to make the purchase result “in one of the largest digital asset trades in history,” according to Coinbase. Additionally, Coinbase published a study about the trades with One River, in order to give a comprehensive view of massively large investments.

The study says that One River selected Coinbase after the company provided a full operational checklist. “The controls and security protocols offered by Coinbase met our rigorous operations and compliance standards,” the COO and risk officer Ian Malloch said of the experience with the San Francisco company. The published report also notes that the digital asset investment made by One River took around five days to complete.

One River’s CIO, Eric Peters, led the trade executions and worked directly with Coinbase’s institutional trading team. The team worked with various time zones, evaluated shifting liquidity and Peters leveraged a wide range of Coinbase tools and algorithms. The study says the trades were executed in a way that would not move the market higher. A majority of the trades settled by One River and Coinbase’s institutional trading team were done in an algorithmic manner.

The results led to One River obtaining a substantial crypto market position without affecting spot market prices in any way. “For the decade ahead, digital assets will be an important addition to every institutional portfolio,” Peters said after the substantial purchases. “This new asset class is an extraordinary opportunity, quite unlike anything I’ve ever seen. One River sees enormous long-term appreciation potential for some of these currencies,” Peters added.

Coinbase has also seen a significant amount of BTC outflow during the last 30-days that can be seen in a news.Bitcoin.com report published earlier this week. The outflow on January 2, 2021, stemming from Coinbase had surged significantly that day. A number of crypto proponents believe these outflows derive from institutional investors, family offices, wealth managers, and firms like One River.