Coinbase Custody Adds Tezos (XTZ) Cold Storage Staking

Earlier this month, it was reported that Coinbase hired Luke Youngblood, formerly a principal solutions architect at AWS, to head up the development of the new staking and governance products.
Now, it looks as if one of the first major moves under Youngblood’s leadership may be the addition of cold-storage staking for Tezos (XTZ) and likely other PoS altcoins, based on a tweet by Blockforce Capital CEO Eric Ervin.
@coinbase custody going to announce tomorrow customers will be able to stake tezos and earn While in cold storage. pic.twitter.com/pVehdZ4XpY
— Eric Ervin (@eervin1) March 29, 2019
Shortly after we reached out to Coinbase for comment regarding the rumor, the Coinbase Custody website was updated to reflect the addition of staking along with several other changes. The new section on ‘Network Participation’ reads, “Staking makes it possible to earn passively against your holdings — all without moving anything from offline storage.”
Coinbase Custody is now 60 clients and $600M+ in AUC.
We now allow XTZ staking (and soon MKR voting). Customers can earn yield and participate in governance all from cold storage.
Also agency-style OTC trading directly into and out of cold storage.
— Dan Romero (@dwr) March 29, 2019
This news comes several weeks after Coinbase Custody completed its first over-the-counter (OTC) trade directly out of cold storage. The trade occurred after its Custody service had been “directly integrated” with the OTC desk at Coinbase Pro.
Tezos is notably not listed for trading on any of the Coinbase trading platforms at present, although it was one of the digital assets Coinbase Custody teased it was considering back in August.
XTZ has been on a tear over the past month and is now up over 90%. While the news has yet to drop, Tezos is already up over 6% to $ 0.8068, giving the coin a $536.7 million market cap.
Report: Coinbase Hires Amazon Web Services Veteran to Develop Staking Solutions
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Disclaimer: This article’s author has cryptocurrency holdings that can be tracked here. This article is for informational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. Always conduct your own due diligence before making investments.