It has been a while coming as crypto custodians look for better ways to serve clients on their platforms. With security protocols no longer a competitive advantage in the field, ease of access and management costs are taking shape as the differentiating factors across most crypto custodial services, Bitgo becomes the latest to offer trading with coins stored in a hardware wallet.

On Tuesday cryptocurrency custodian, Bitgo announced a partnership with SettleBit, which aims to provide a direct gateway for clients, mostly institutional, to trade digital assets directly from their Bitgo account. Bitgo which was founded in 2013, offers specialized custody, ensures security and liquidity options for digital assets. They are currently handling over $15 billion in cryptocurrencies monthly.

Now using SettleBit’s digital asset trade settlement platform, which has been integrated with their own, Bitgo clients can trade directly from their custodial accounts. Through a liquidity network, the clients can try to get their best rates and come to an agreement as soon as verification is complete and in the meanwhile their funds are safely stored in cold storage.

As for now the platform only deals with Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and only one fiat currency namely the US dollar although they have expressed the desire to expand to more stablecoins and tokens. During the announcement Bitgo’s Head of financial services Nick Carmi explained how the partnership with SettleBit has brought about a solution that enables client’s assets to remain in cold storage as they trade.

“We know that many of our clients want to be able to trade without moving their assets out of cold storage… Using our settlement API, SettleBit has created a simple and elegant solution”

SettleBit’s CEO, Leor Tasman seemed excited at the opportunity they had created for the Institutional clients, the ability to securely trade digital assets that are with no settlement risks which is not common especially on Cryptoblocks.

“Trading with no settlement risk is the Holy Grail for any investor, especially on crypto block trades. Together with the world’s leading custodian, our technology is creating new opportunities for all market participants. We are excited about this opportunity”

The first successful trade was completed on Jan 22, by the Entertainment distribution network CTM Digital who transacted with $100,000 worth of Bitcoin.

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