Crypto Custodian, BitGo, Acquires Harbor to Expand its Digital Currency Services

BitGo has announced that it will soon be an all-stack digital currency service provider following the acquisition of Harbor. The crypto custodian also acquired Harbor’s business subsidiaries which include a transfer agency and broker dealership for digital currencies.

The beauty about Harbor’s existing operations is that they are legally under the supervision of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and SEC. According to the announcement made on Feb 18, BitGo has already initiated the process of a transfer of functions with both FINRA and the SEC. This milestone will allow BitGo to implement a replica of traditional financial services within its tokenomics.

Mike Belshe, the CEO of BitGo, was keen to note that the firm’s vision was always bigger than its current business as a custodian;

“Our vision has always been bigger than wallets and custody and acquiring Harbor furthers BitGo’s vision of building a new digital infrastructure for financial services.”

This acquisition is clearly a big deal for both BitGo and Harbor given its mutually beneficial nature. The former however seems to have been the bigger winner since BitGo will now be the first firm to have an agency, broker and custodian license for crypto assets. Harbor on the other hand stands to leverage BitGo’s custodial services although a clear roadmap is yet to be defined.

Josh Stein, Harbor’s CEO, is also expected to join BitGo as part of the acquisition deal. He however mentioned that they have previously worked together with BitGo given both provided services that the other didn’t have;

“BitGo has been an important partner since Harbor inception. We’ve worked closely together to integrate BitGo Business Wallets and BitGo Custody into Harbor’s services.”

Belshe is optimistic that consolidating services will reduce the barriers to entry in the crypto market. In addition, BitGo will scale its security token services to a number of functions including issuing, transferring and trade executions.