But instead, this week ends with me more confused than I began - so instead, i'll give you a run down on all of it - you can make your own guesses and draw your own conclusions.
So first there was a major announcement - that the SEC and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has given Coinbase the thumbs up for trading cryptocurrencies that meet the legal qualifications of a security.
But now, they're taking it all back, telling TechCrunch:
“The SEC’s approval is not required for the change of control application. Coinbase has discussed aspects of its proposed operations, including the acquisition of the Keystone Entity, on an informal basis with several members of SEC staff. So it’s not correct to say that the SEC and FINRA approved Coinbase’s purchase of Keystone because SEC was not involved in the approval process. Approval was received from FINRA.”
Then today, Coinbase has apparently gained a hedge fund with over $20 Billion in assets into their Coinbase Prime service - except no one is saying which it is. According to Business Insider citing leaks from anonymous sources who told them:
"...the firm has onboarded a $20 billion hedge fund through its prime business, the people said, declining to specify which fund. The team is working on getting other large hedge funds onto its trading platform."
What's clear is this - there's an aggressive battle going on behind the scenes right now to be the first cryptocurrency outlet with blessings from the US Government to offer full brokerage services which many believe will end in the cryptocurrency markets seeing trillions of dollars flooding into it.
Over the past few months we've seen cryptocurrency companies recruiting people from Wall Street, and Wall Street companies recruiting people from the cryptocurrency world - all in preparation for the day this happens.
The traditional finance world demands this combination of services before they're willing to invest large sums: Government approval for their market trading actions, and the full array of services they're used to on Wall Street (custody, financing, lending, shorting)
Currently, the companies racing to be the first to do it are Coinbase, Circle, and Robinhood. From what we know it at least appears currently CoinBase has taken the lead.
Author: Ross Davis
E-Mail: Ross@GlobalCryptoPress.com Twitter:@RossFM
San Francisco News Desk
