Just four months since the launch of its Coinbase Index Fund, the digital currency exchange is shutting it down, citing lack of investor demand.
Cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase is reportedly planning to remove its index fund, as it failed to generate enough interest from accredited investors, The Block Crypto reported on Thursday.
The exchange first introduced the fund “equivalent to the S&P 500 index” this past June targeting clients wishing to invest a minimum of $250,000 to up to $20 million. The index fund service was a part of the company’s efforts to attract big institutional investors and was available to accredited investors only from the US. Still, it wasn’t able to receive enough interest.
Moreover, after the fund was released, some investors showed concerns about the lack of support for multiple crypto assets as well as high fees. To address these complaints, the company expanded the list of tokens and minimized management fees by 50% to 1% a year.
Now, Coinbase is going to focus on more casual investors with its new offering, called Coinbase Bundle. The product is similar to an index fund, but offers a bundle of digital currencies, which traders can purchase for as little as $25.
Coinbase Bundle was actually inspired by Circle Invest, which lets clients to buy bundles of 11 tokens with a minimum investment of $10. However, Circle Invest failed to become popular among investors since Coinbase decided to copy it.
Coinbase Bundle was launched last month together with two other products – Informational Asset Pages and Coinbase Learn. As the company stated at the time, all these solutions are aimed at educating people about the cryptocurrency and simplifying the process of investment.
The decision to remove the index fund is in contrast with the company’s recent claims that it recorded huge customer demand. This, however, can explain why Adam White, the exchange’s head of institutional platform, left Coinbase.
The exchange, meantime, is not the only one that is having problems with gaining new customers. Coinfloor, which is the UK’s oldest crypto trading platform, has lain off a large number of its employees owing to a decline in the market volume. Likewise, Indian exchange Zebpay has recently closed its platform because of uncertain regulatory conditions.
The news follows recent announcement by Coinbase that it is adding ZRX token to its professional trading platform Coinbase Pro. This is the first time Coinbase is providing support for any ERC-20 token based on the Ethereum network.
A few days ago, Coinbase also unveiled plans to expand to Japanese market, despite a strict regulatory framework in the country. According to Mike Lempres, the chief policy officer at Coinbase, the process of getting a license for its services is going well with the Financial Services Agency (FSA) and the company expects to get an approval next year.
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