The biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, Coinbase, announced it facilitated one of the largest institutional Bitcoin (BTC) purchases in 2020. Coinbase was chosen as a key executive partner for the $425 million purchase of Bitcoin by MicroStrategy in September 2020 according to an official statement.
For more information on the purchase, Brett Tejpaul, head of the institutional sales department at Coinbase, provided a blog post on institutional purchases. “Using our advanced execution capabilities, leading crypto prime brokerage platform, and OTC desk, we were able to buy a significant amount of Bitcoin on behalf of MicroStrategy and did so without moving the market,” Tejpaul stated. MicroStrategy selected Coinbase as it provides a number of market tools such as smart order routing and algorithmic trading tools, according to the post. According to a case study on MicroStrategy Transactions, Coinbase performed a sequence of pre-trade calls with MicroStrategy prior to the purchase of $425 million in order to further grasp the priorities of trade execution and to develop a trading plan. After the successful test Coinbase started to carry out a larger transaction, using the algorithm “Time Weighted Average Price,” which was used for five days to carry out the trade.
