Crypto giant Coinbase is making its “everything exchange” push in Canada.
Eric Richmond, country director and CEO of Coinbase Canada, told BNN Bloomberg in a Tuesday interview that the move would allow Canadians to not only buy crypto but also trade tokenized stocks and put money on prediction markets.
“Coinbase believes we have a new technology here that can really help with that, and that’s blockchain and the technology that underpins crypto today,” Richmond said in the interview. “How do we create that one place for Canadians to have their entire financial experience in one app that’s underpinned by this technology that makes things frictionless, seamless, and 24/7?”
He added: “I think people are starting to realize the fact that banks close at 4 p.m., or the markets close at 4 p.m., or that wires can take days to settle, or that access for high-net-worth individuals to certain products are gated for just those high-net-worth individuals.”
Coinbase in the U.S. allows Americans to place bets and trade stocks. The company started as a place allowing people to buy and sell Bitcoin but has since offered hundreds of digital coins.
Richmond added that the company was working with Canadian regulators to make the launch.
Tokenized stocks are versions of equities that trade on the technology underpinning Bitcoin: the blockchain. Proponents like Coinbase argue that by tokenizing everything, traders will be able to make transactions around the clock, 24-7.
A number of crypto exchanges are also making the push to branch out from crypto: Kraken, for example, has also started allowing users to trade stocks and has announced plans for a prediction market platform.
Coinbase’s big moves
Coinbase has made some bigger moves in recent years, other than just working as a crypto exchange.
America’s biggest bank, JPMorgan Chase, last year signed a deal with the company to allow customers to directly link their bank accounts to the platform.
Coinbase also provides custody services — including to Wall Street giants like BlackRock — and has a contract with the US government to hold onto seized crypto.
The company also in April received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in the U.S. for a national trust banking charter, essentially paving the way for it to serve as a crypto custodian on a federal basis, managing assets for larger entities.
The company has clashed with banking executives recently over stablecoin rewards: the exchange wants its yield-bearing stablecoin products to continue, which in turn could prove to be a bigger boon in the long-run for the business.
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