Coinbase Adds Support to Bitcoin Forks, Also Announces a New Incubator-fund ‘Coinbase Ventures’

Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S and also across the globe made some very important announcements on Friday, April 6. Initially, the company announced that it is now adding support for customers to withdraw their funds from the Bitcoin forks.

The hard forks in any particular digital currency give investors the right to get some free access to the newly created coins. Although Coinbase did not announce any official timeline for the support of fund-withdrawal, in its official blog post the company said: "This change will allow customers to more easily withdraw assets associated with Bitcoin Forks across all Coinbase Products.”

The company further added that "As always, we look at technical, operational, and legal considerations when deciding which Bitcoin Fork assets to support and will always state on our website which particular assets are supported."

The company said that in future, it will work for supporting Bitcoin forks on Coinbase Custody Product while further adding that this platform "will likely support more forked assets than GDAX or Coinbase for the foreseeable future.”

Apart from this, the company made an official announcement of the launch of new incubator-fund called ‘Coinbase Ventures’ early-stage startups within the blockchain and the cryptocurrency space.

While talking to CNBC, Coinbase President and CEO Asiff Hirji said: "We're going to invest off our balance sheet into crypto companies. We will invest in companies that are in the space and are aligned with our values.”

The seed-stage investment of the fund will begin this week which will provide companies the initial fodder to start working on their ideas. The fund also aims at building relationships in the blockchain and the crypto space. Coinbase said that in order to do this, it could also be investing in its competitors.

The company said: "You may also see us invest in companies that ostensibly look competitive with Coinbase. We’re taking a long-term view of the space, and we believe that multiple approaches are healthy and good.”

Harji made it clear that the Ventures fund will be investing in founders and their ideas and not just any other money-making cryptocurrency. He said: "By giving them access to capital we hope that they will grow great businesses. It’s not about investing in the token, it's not about trying to line up tokens that we would put on our exchange.”

There has been a lot of mounting pressure on digital currency exchanges with increased regulatory measures in the crypto space. While commenting whether Coinbase in considering to add new coins, Harji said that the exchange has still not considered any such option and will wait till more regulatory clarity arrives in this matter.

Harji also said that Coinbase Ventures will not give any specific importance to companies where the fund invests in over other digital currencies. He said: ”We are not investing in currencies because we do not want even the appearance of a conflict of interest.”