Coinbase (COIN) has declared itself the sole full-service prime brokerage in the cryptocurrency industry. John D’Agostino, head of strategy at Coinbase Institutional, defines a prime broker by a comprehensive suite of services including trading, custody, financing, derivatives, and cross-margining, with staking as a crypto-specific addition.
He notes that in traditional finance, only a few firms like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America qualify as full-service prime brokers. Historically, crypto funds have had to piece together these services from multiple providers. Coinbase's flagship platform, Coinbase Prime, now offers these functions natively in a single system.
Coinbase Institutional, the exchange's arm for institutional investors, manages over $350 billion in assets under custody, representing approximately 12% of the total crypto market capitalization. It also serves as custodian for over 80% of U.S. Bitcoin and Ether ETF assets. The platform processes around $236 billion in quarterly trading volume and supports more than 470 assets across numerous blockchains.
The integration of cross-margining between spot and derivatives positions in March was the final piece, allowing significant capital requirement reductions for market makers and institutional traders. D'Agostino believes this consolidates Coinbase's position as a prime broker by all standards. The platform also includes a $1 billion lending book and integrates with Deribit for derivatives trading, alongside institutional-scale staking services.