Coinbase Index Fund to Be Shut down by Parent Crypto Exchange

By Swati Kishore

A spokesperson at Coinbase, the San Francisco-based digital currency exchange, announced that it is on path to shutting down its institutional investor-focused project, called the Coinbase Index Fund. It is reported that the index fund, which was launched early this year, will be officially closed down by the end of October 2018. Users who are trying to access the index fund are already being directed to the newly launched Coinbase Bundle product. The news was first confirmed on Thursday.

The spokesperson was quoted as saying:

“After assessing demand from retail, accredited, and institutional investors, Coinbase has decided to shut down Coinbase Index Fund. We will focus on providing diversified exposure to all investors through Coinbase Bundle.”

Coinbase Bundle is open to all investors and users of the crypto exchange as there is no need  for accreditation. As compared to the minimum requirement of USD 250,000 for Coinbase Index Fund, the minimum need for Coinbase Bundle is just USD 25. The spokesperson added, “We’ve decided to refocus the resources devoted to managing the Coinbase Index Fund to other parts of the business.”

The index fund focused on institutional investors and was announced in March 2018, although it was not live until the mid of June. It was announced by the Product Lead that institutional investors can invest anywhere from USD 250,000 to USD 20 million in the product. The US based investors of the fund could deal in Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Litecoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, which were weighted by their market cap. At the time of the launch, sources also stated that other assets will be added once they are listed on the cryptocurrency exchange.

It is interesting to note that the confirmation for shutting down of Coinbase Index Fund came a day post which Coinbase announced that it is incorporating the 0x Protocol Token (ZRX) to its professional trading platform- Coinbase Pro. Deposits of ZRX Token were allowed until Friday morning, post which full trading was launched later in the day.

Retail investors should note that they cannot yet trade ZRX on Coinbase or the mobile application. It was announced by the exchange that the token will be added to the previously mentioned platforms in the coming days.