Coinbase opens its crypto index fund to accredited U.S. investors

June 13, 2018

Fresh from revealing plans to add Ethereum Classic to its exchange, crypto giant Coinbase today announced that its cryptocurrency index fund — first revealed in March — is open to investors in the U.S..

The company said in a blog post that it has see “overwhelming” interest from investors, and now it is reaching out to those who want to invest between $250,000 and $20 million. For now, the company said, participation is limited to the U.S. and those who are accredited investors.

That’s a pretty big caveat since crypto, by default, is open to anyone — although many ICOs tread carefully in markets like the U.S. — but Coinbase is very specifically target institutional capital, having recently added services for Wall Street-like professional investors.

The pitch is that it knows the market, its service covers the most stable assets and it won’t charge the kind of rates that existing funds do, as Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong explained on Twitter.

Investing in Coinbase Index Fund is the easiest way to get exposure to a broad range get of crypto assets.
Much cheaper than 2 and 20% charged by most crypto hedge funds, and you get new assets automatically added to the fund as they become available on Coinbase. No rebalancing. https://t.co/TyOnDuFMT9

— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) June 13, 2018

Here’s more:

Coinbase Index Fund gives investors exposure to all assets listed on our exchange, weighted by market capitalization. As we announced yesterday, the fund will be rebalanced to include Ethereum Classic, and more assets when they are listed by Coinbase in the future.

Coinbase did say that it is working to launch other funds that are “accessible to all investors and cover a broader range of digital assets” so, if you’re not an accredited U.S. investor, there might yet be opportunities for you depending on what comes next. However, given that Coinbase is striving to be SEC-compliant — and the SEC is in the middle of a major crypto investigation — it might take some time to reach the longer tail of retail investors.

Stay tuned, though, we’ll be asking questions to two key people at Coinbase over the coming months and this topic is sure to be on the menu. CTO Balaji Srinivasan will appear at our blockchain event in Zug next month, while CEO Amstrong is among the guests who will take to the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco in September.