On Wednesday (January 16th), crypto custody solution provider BitGo, announced a partnership with Genesis Global Trading (“Genesis”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Barry Silbert’s Digital Currency Group (DCG) and one of the largest over-the-counter (OTC) cryptocurrency dealers, to allow its clients to trade cryptoassets directly from BitGo custody (cold storage).

BitGo says that via “a seamless integration”, its clients will be able to “easily execute buy and sell orders without having to manage keys or move their assets from the industry’s most secure cold storage,” and wishes to assure them that there are “no additional fees for this service.”

BitGo clients will be able to:

  • “Maintain assets in custody with BitGo Trust Company, the first qualified custodian purpose-built for digital assets”
  • “Get online, real-time pricing for buy and sell orders”
  • “Easily execute transactions from cold storage without having to manage keys”
  • “Access Genesis’ deep liquidity through a robust network of trading partners with same day settlement directly through a BitGo Trust account”
  • “Trade a variety of currencies including Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Ripple (XRP), and Zcash (ZEC)”

According to a report in Bloomberg, this new service, which will be available by the end of this month, means that BitGo’s clients “will be able to buy or sell Bitcoin, Ether and other digital assets without the coins ever leaving cold storage — in other words, they’ll stay on devices not connected to the internet, making them harder to steal.”

Bloomberg was told that BitGo wishes to “introduce market structure to crypto that’s never existed before,” before adding that being able to trade in “offline-mode” (i.e. directly from cold storage) eliminates the need to send coins to exchanges, which reduces the risk of “theft, human error or running afoul of compliance requirements.”

Mike Belshe, the CEO of BitGo, said:

“Some custodians are choosing to sacrifice security and safety by enabling fast withdrawals from cold-storage which makes their clients more susceptible to hacking, false instructions, and theft. Our partnership with Genesis, a FINRA and SEC regulated company, gives our clients access to liquidity through Genesis’ robust network of trading partners. And that solves the real problem which is the need to access liquidity – not the need to speed up withdrawals.”

As for Michael Moro, the CEO of genesis, he had this to say about this new partnership:

“BitGo has been a terrific, long-term partner to Genesis and we have a lot of confidence in their institutional offerings. We are an industry leader in digital currency trading and lending, and providing liquidity for companies like BitGo is an important part of our value proposition.”

Interestingly, the Bloomberg report also mentions that the BitGo CEO told them that, in the future, BitGo will allow this kind of trading not only with the help of Genesis:

“We will hook up as many liquidity sources as we can so our clients will have access to as much liquidity while staying in cold storage.”

 

Featured Image Courtesy of BitGo