Coinbase Plans to Push Institutional Investors into Web3, Defi, NFTs Amid Rattled India Operations

Coinbase, in a bid to get institutional investors to engage with NFTs and DeFi, has launched a new service dedicated to do so. Under its Coinbase Prime division, the exchange has launched an institutional grade Web3 Wallet with advanced level security and utility provisions. Coinbase's interest to increase the involvement of hefty investors into the digital assets sector comes at a time when the global Web3 market is projected to churn $3.25 billion (roughly Rs.26,955 crore) by the end of 2023.

The Coinbase Prime Web3 Wallet will allow clients to store tokens and gain instant access to funds under self-custody. It will also help users interact with decentralised applications (dApps) as well as smart contracts.

“Institutional clients have been looking for reliable access but have struggled to find it in the current environment. Many of our own institutional clients have had to use a patchwork of fragmented solutions to access web3 up until now. With our Web3 Wallet, clients can easily access Web3,” the exchange said in an official post.

Coinbase Prime Takes Centre Stage

In May 2021, Coinbase launched its Prime service to cater to the advanced trading and asset custody needs of institutional investors.

This new Web3 wallet will get users the access to any dApp as well as tokens from supported networks.

"Because our Web3 Wallet is built into Coinbase Prime, it leverages the same flexible team member permissioning for enhanced security. This gives clients the ability to determine the appropriate level of access for each team member by assigning them a user role with a limited set of customisable permissions. Prime Web3 Wallet also utilises the same entity and portfolio hierarchy providing further customisation based on how an institution is organised,” the exchange's post added.

To help companies stay ahead of security threats, the wallet will provide approval alerts, transaction previews, risk warnings, as well as an option to block suspicious dApps. The exchange has claimed that its implementation of the ‘multi-party computation (MPC)' system can never expose the users' private keys. It also plans to provide its clients with a special self-custody backup which could come-in handy for the secure recovery of their keys.

This development comes at a time when Coinbase's operations in India — which topped Chainalysis' Global Crypto Adoption Index 2023 — are rattled up.

After some of its users in India got notifications of their accounts being disabled in the coming days, rumours arose that Coinbase could be discontinuing its operations in the country all together. While the company said it remains committed to its Indian users, Coinbase has temporarily paused new registrations from India for the time being.