Coinbase, the San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange is extending its operations to cover additional 11 countries in Southeast Asia and Latin America.
In its blog post, the company stated that it would begin offering crypto-to-crypto trading services to clients in Argentina, Peru, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, South Korea, the Philippines and New Zealand.
Resident clients of the above mentioned countries can now trade, hold, receive and send cryptos. The blog post also states that cryptocurrency trading level is shifting from the prevailing “investment phase” to “utility phase” following several new use cases.
Regarding the facility being extended to 11 more countries, Coinbase says
“This could take the form of decentralized versions of traditional financial services like lending or micropayments or truly novel crypto applications that no one has even thought of yet. The ability to convert from one crypto to another will form the backbone of this new decentralized economy.”
The company stated that it is offering both Coinbase and Coinbase Pro platform to interested clients. With this expansion, Coinbase now serves clients in 53 countries, across four continents, from the prior 32 countries in two continents.
Notably, the exchange has revealed that crypto-to-crypto trading has surpassed fiat-to-crypto trading in 2018.
The verified trading volume data of Coinbase indicates that crypto-to-crypto trades had a 51% share of total volume in February 2019, compared with 41% in August 2018.
Last December, Coinbase started offering crypto-to-crypto trading for retail customers, permitting them to receive the service through Android and iOS apps of Coinbase.com. Previously, such a facility was only offered to large retail customers.
Coinbase recently launched many new initiatives, including the listing of EOS (EOS), Augur (REP) and Maker (MKR) and extending cross – border payouts. Reportedly, the recent initiative allows customers to remit and receive money instantaneously and exchange it into local currency.
Coinbase also introduced Coinbase Card with Visa earlier in April, enabling UK-based clients to pay in-store and online with digital currency. The unique service enables Coinbase to instantaneously exchange cryptocurrency funds to fiat money to finish the purchase.
