Coinbase has achieved a milestone in the crypto industry by becoming the only full-service prime brokerage, offering a comprehensive suite of services including trading, custody, financing, derivatives, and cross-margining. According to John D'Agostino, head of strategy at Coinbase Institutional, the company's definition of a prime broker aligns with the traditional Wall Street checklist, with the added layer of staking in the crypto space. D'Agostino noted that only a handful of firms in equities and fixed income, such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, qualify as full-service primes, while smaller brokers lack the full range of services.
In the crypto industry, funds previously had to piece together services from multiple providers, but Coinbase now offers a native, all-in-one solution. The company's flagship platform, Coinbase Prime, has over $350 billion in assets under custody and serves as custodian for more than 80% of U.S. bitcoin and ether ETF assets. With the recent introduction of cross-margining, Coinbase has completed its prime brokerage offering, allowing market makers and institutional traders to reduce capital requirements.
The company's institutional platform processes approximately $236 billion in quarterly trading volume and supports over 470 assets across 20-plus blockchains. Beyond trading and custody, Coinbase has a $1 billion lending book and a significant listed derivatives footprint through its Deribit integration, as well as a staking business spanning 10 to 20 tokens at institutional scale. D'Agostino expects banks and incumbents to partner with Coinbase rather than building their own crypto prime brokerage capabilities, at least in the near term.
However, he acknowledges that the landscape could change if crypto grows to a larger percentage of global markets.