Coinbase Inc., the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, is expanding its services again in an attempt to broaden its appeal to traditional institutional Wall Street investors.

In a raft of new products announced Tuesday, the headline launch was Coinbase Custody, a custodian offering traditionally offered by merchant banks to secure customer cash.

A custodian in finance is a third-party financial institution that holds customers’ securities for safekeeping to minimize the risk of their theft or loss. Coinbase hasn’t named what entity will provide their custodian service, but it said it would be an “SEC-regulated broker-dealer.”

Next on the list is Coinbase Prime, a platform “designed specifically to provide a suite of tools and services that institutional investors rely on when trading cryptocurrency.” Although initially providing research and market data geared toward institutional clients, the service will expand in the coming months to include margin lending to qualified clients as well as high-touch and low-touch execution services such as over-the-counter trading and algorithmic orders.

In a pitch designed to emphasize its size relative to smaller competitors, Coinbase Markets is expanding via a new office in Chicago. It’s also renewing an emphasis on its high liquidity along with a range of new supporting products over the year ahead. They will include low-latency performance, on-premises data center colocation services, institutional connectivity and access, and new settlement and clearing services.

Ultimately, the emphasis is on appealing to people with serious money. “We think this can unlock $10 billion of institutional investor money sitting on the sideline,” Adam White, Coinbase’s vice president and general manager, told CNBC. “We’re seeing a rapid increase in attention awareness and adoption in the cryptocurrency market.”

Coinbase’s move comes as serious crypto companies look to appeal to a broader number of investors after the boom and subsequent price deflation of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies from the last quarter of 2017 into January. Gemini Trust Co. Ltd., best known for its owners, the Winklevoss twins of Facebook court case fame, earlier today added support for Zcash. Others, such as Square Inc. and eToro, are also increasingly taking a broader interest.

Photo: jonrussell/Flickr