American cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase announced that it has committed to invest US$500 million of its cash and cash equivalents into a diverse portfolio of crypto assets.

Coinbase added that going forward, it will also allocate 10% of quarterly net income into this same portfolio.

According to a statement by the firm, this move will make it the first publicly traded company to hold Ethereum, Proof of Stake assets, DeFi tokens, and many other crypto assets supported for trading on its platform, in addition to Bitcoin, on its balance sheet.

Coinbase’s crypto asset investment allocation will be driven by its aggregate custodial crypto balances which means that its customers will drive its investment strategy. The firm added that it may increase our allocation over time as the crypto economy matures.

Its investments will be continually deployed over a multi-year window using a dollar cost averaging strategy.

The company recently made waves as it announced that it will be scrapping the launch of its crypto lending programme “Coinbase Lend” when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) gave it a Wells notice with intentions to sue it.

Paul Grewal, Chief Legal Officer at Coinbase claimed that while it had been transparent in its dealings with the SEC, the regulator did not give it probable cause for the notice.

It has instead chosen to postpone the launch of Lend to October and “continues to welcome additional regulatory clarity”.

Coinbase said in a blog post,

“We are long term investors and will only divest under select circumstances, such as an asset delisting from our platform. All trades will be executed via our over the counter desk or away from our exchange to avoid any conflict of interest with our customers.

 

We believe that in the future, more and more companies will hold crypto assets on their balance sheet. We hope by incorporating more crypto assets into our own corporate financial practices, we can take another step towards building a more open crypto economy.”