Coinbase head of institutional coverage Brett Tejpaul says institutional interest in cryptocurrency has grown more than threefold since joining the exchange earlier in the year.
Speaking in an interview with the YouTube channel Heidrick & Struggles, Tejpaul outlined how Coinbase had changed under his tenure since April, including increased interest from institutional investors.
According to the Coinbase executive, institutional interest has multiplied week after week throughout 2020.
He said,
We’ve had an explosion of activity… I joined in April of this year. At that time, our institutional assets under custody were $6 billion. Today, we stand at over $20 billion. So more than a three-time increase.
Tejpaul continued, saying the majority of fresh capital into cryptocurrency was being allocated towards bitcoin leading to an “explosion” of investment.
He also explained the exchange had acquired the execution platform Tagomi, which radically transformed Coinbase’s ability to service institutional clients with smart order routing and algorithmic execution. He said the partnership had allowed the exchange to increase its institutional trading volume by 20 times compared to the beginning of the year.
Tejpaul pointed to the presence of high-profile investors, including hedge fund legend Paul Tuder Jones and MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor.
He concluded,
For people sitting on the sideline that are now looking at the major banks, the major accounting firms, major hedge funds, major endowments, and now PayPal is getting into the space. It’s really unleashed a second wave of institutional adoption.
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