News 
Coin Information 
About us 
Leading cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is in talks to acquire crypto custody provider Xapo for about $50 million, sources familiar with the matter told The Block.
The acquisition is aimed at boosting Coinbase’s own crypto custody business, which has been facing stiff competition from other players in this space including Fidelity Digital Assets.
If the deal goes through, Coinbase will reportedly pay ~$50 million in cash for Xapo, along with a contingent earn-out for remaining with the company.
Founded in 2012, Xapo is licensed and regulated by the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (GFSC) under the Financial Services (Electronic Money) Regulations 2011 as an "Electronic Money Institution". Backed by Ribbit Capital, Digital Currency Group, Pantera Capital and others, the startup has raised $40 million to date.
Its core product is bitcoin cold storage vault custody. Xapo reportedly holds nearly $5.5 billion assets under custody (AUC), which at the current bitcoin price of near $8,000 suggests that the company holds around 700,000 bitcoin under custody.
Coinbase, which received BitLicense back in January 2017, officially launched its custodian service for institutional investors in mid-2018. Earlier this month, Coinbase announced that Coinbase Custody now supports more than 30 cryptocurrencies with the latest addition of Augur (REP), ZCash (ZEC) and Tezos (XTZ), FOAM (FOAM), Kin (KIN) and Maker Dai (MKR), among others.
Since its founding, Coinbase has acquired a total of 14 companies. The acquisition of Xapo could result in the addition of several billion of AUC, which would greatly boost Coinbase’s position.
Earlier this year, Coinbase came under fire for its acquisition of blockchain analytics firm Neutrino, whose some executives were involved in ‘Hacking Team,’ which was infamous for human rights abuses. Following the backlash, Coinbase announced that those Neutrino executives who worked at Hacking Team will be transitioned out of the company.
Comment 20