The partnership between Coinbase and Conio is indicative of a larger trend in Europe that sees traditional banks and other financial institutions accepting cryptocurrencies more and more.
The well-known US cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and Conio, an Italian cryptocurrency wallet provider partly owned by two large Italian companies, have formed a new alliance. This partnership aims to make a variety of digital assets more easily accessible to banks and other financial institutions across Italy.
Conio will make use of Coinbase Prime to provide institutional-grade liquidity support for crypto-friendly banks looking to expand their digital asset offerings. The company currently serves close to half a million retail customers. By the end of this year, the partners hope to jointly enable trading and custody services for up to 50 distinct cryptocurrency tokens through this arrangement.
The partnership between Coinbase and Conio is indicative of a larger trend in Europe that sees traditional banks and other financial institutions accepting cryptocurrencies more and more. Recent spikes in cryptocurrency prices, which have also been fueled by the introduction of more partnerships and solutions, including those that boosted more participation, rising interest in tokenized real-world assets, and upcoming EU-wide regulations like the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework, are all contributing factors to this change. Conio is notably involved in the Bank of Italy’s Euro Token initiative, which emphasizes the growing interest of Italian financial institutions in creating services based on cryptocurrencies.
The stated goal of the new collaboration is to cover almost 60% of the Italian digital asset market within one year. This would be achieved by leveraging Coinbase’s institutional trading and custody technologies to help Conio expand its services. The integration will also enable support for assets across various EVM-compatible blockchains.
Conio general manager Orlando Merone said:
“Conio created the first multisig bitcoin wallet for smartphones in Italy, and we are now enlarging the custody capabilities because Italian banks are demanding more in the way of digital assets. We are adding EVM Ethereum Virtual Machine chains, and the target is to cover almost 60% of the digital assets market by next year.”
Banks and Traditional Financial Institutions Show Increasing Interest in Crypto and Digital Asset Offerings
This collaboration between Coinbase and Conio is a prime illustration of how the cryptocurrency market is changing to attract more involvement from traditional financial institutions. Prominent international exchanges and startups offering cryptocurrency wallets are working more and more with established banks and organizations, who are joining the market expecting big changes in the industry in the near future.
As the general manager also stated:
“The Bank of Italy is in touch with a lot of projects and looking closely at the market. In terms of the fintech industry, with tokenization, you are going to completely rework e-money, most probably. It’s great that they are championing the Italian digital assets space.”
As the market develops, rising prices, clearer regulations, and growing interest in tokenized assets are all pushing the adoption of cryptocurrencies forward.
