Coinbase, the US-headquartered bitcoin exchange today announced the launch of a new company to help institutional investors securely store digital assets, the new business is called Coinbase Custody. A natural step, as the company revealed they are already storing more than $9B of digital currency on behalf of its customers.

Coinbase said that with the number of new funds created for digital assets, the number one concern they have is the existence of a digital asset custodian that they can trust to store funds securely. Due to this feedback, Coinbase is creating Coinbase Custody to meet the needs of institutional clients.

In particular, the exchange feels that institutional clients require:

Strict financial controls (multiple signers, audit trails, limits, etc.)

Dedicated account representatives and phone support

SLAs on funds transfers

A regulated digital currency custodian (Coinbase is regulated in New York State)

Multi-user accounts with separate permissions

Support for a wide range of digital assets and currencies

Insurance (in some cases)

And high levels of cyber and physical security

Brian Armstrong, Co-Founder, and CEO at Coinbase said:

“Coinbase is well-positioned to launch this product. We already store billions of dollars worth of digital assets on behalf of our customers. We serve thousands of institutions via our GDAX product, the leading digital currency exchange in the U.S.”

“We’ve raised $216M from venture capital firms and financial institutions like the NYSE/ICE, USAA, BBVA, Westpac, and MUFG. And we have approximately 200 employees working across our three offices in New York, London, and San Francisco with deep industry knowledge. Our goal with Coinbase Custody is to help dramatically accelerate the flow of institutional money into digital currencies over the coming years.”

The company plans to roll out the early access product sometime in 2018. An initial pricing plan has a setup fee of $100k, AUM fee of 10 BPS per month, and $10M minimum balance. Coinbase Custody plans to offer support for all major digital assets, including BTC, ETH, LTC, ERC20 tokens, and others to be announced.