Cryptocurrency custody platform Curv has integrated Compound Finance (COMP) into its platform, according to an announcement made on July 16. Curv provides institution grade custody solutions, with customers including eToro, Franklin Templeton Investments, Genesis and SwissBorg.
The integration will allow institutions to earn interest on idle assets via the Compound Finance protocol on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain, giving them the a passive income stream that retail investors have jumped on since the COMP token’s launch in June.
Itay Malinger, Co-founder and CEO of Curv, was glad to bring DeFi to an institutional audience, saying,
Our growing list of institutional clients, including exchanges, custodians and asset managers, have all turned to Curv to secure their digital assets and support their adoption of new financial products in the digital economy. We’re excited to integrate Compound and simplify the experience so that we can make DeFi secure and accessible to an institutional audience.
The announcement covers the incredible growth that the DeFi space has been experiencing, including the standout growth of COMP in particular. The latter sparked a wave of liquidity mining programs, which lets users earn interest on idle assets by contributing them towards liquidity pools. Projects that have launched yield farming programs include Kyber Network (KNC), Ampleforth (AMPL), Balancer (BAL) and Synthetix (SNX).
Compound has quickly become the top DeFi platform, with roughly $700 million in total value at the time of publishing. Source.
This in turn has brought in a wave of investment into the DeFi market, which had already been on an uptrend. The niche crossed $2 billion in total locked in value following the arrival of COMP.
Curv provides institutions with keyless cryptographic security through multi-party computation and is blockchain agnostic. It also provides insurance coverage of up to $50 million through a partnership with Munich RE. It supports over 200 assets.
The DeFi market has also caught the attention of exchanges, some of which have listed DeFi assets. Coinbase recently listed COMP, while Kraken has added COMP, KNC and Kava (KAVA). Meanwhile, blockchain software company ConsenSys has launched a compliance software for DeFi.
