The crypto service startup Anchorage has launched a crypto platform for its institutional investors and has taken over the data analysis company Merkle Data.
The steps announced on Wednesday mark an expansion of offerings for a company originally focused on providing custody services to institutions, as betting continues that adding more features like trading will carry crypto further into the mainstream.
The acquisition of Merkle Data similarly expands Anchorage’s reach, according to the blog post. Anchorage set up the data team to complement its new trading service, saying Merkle Data will improve its quantitative analysis and risk modeling capabilities.
The San Francisco-based startup has been expanding its services for much of the past year. A governance platform for in-chain voting was added in October, months after the introduction of stellar inflation and the Tezos stake (known as “baking”) for customers with crypto assets.
President Diogo Mónica sees these extensions as crucial for the custodian bank he co-founded. In an opinion piece for CoinDesk’s Year in Review series, he said, “Whatever investors want to do with their assets – buy and hold, leave a key position, trade actively, participate in equity and governance – the custodian is involved. “
It’s also a response to customer expectations, said Nathan McCauley, CEO of Anchorage.
“This is part of a growing trend,” he said in a statement sent to CoinDesk. “Our clients asked us from day one to offer brokerage deals as they are usually part of the same workflow. Customers buy assets and then place them in custody or take assets out of custody to sell. When one vendor can do both, it makes things a lot easier for customers. “
The trading service differs slightly from the “majority” of over-the-counter desks operating today, Anchorage said. The platform uses a paid model instead of the main predominant structure.
The main model trading allows brokers to take advantage of the spread between when an asset is offered and the spot price. Fee-based trading, on the other hand, earns money with commissions. Anchorage said this was a more transparent way of doing business.
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