Digital currencies available at Skandiabanken
Ever since the advent of bitcoin, the debate has alternated between bitcoin as a currency, blockchain as a protocol and bitcoin as an asset class. Japan as recognized bitcoin as a legal method of payment, the financial industry is exploring blockchain and cryptocurrencies shows all traits of a new asset class.
No matter how you choose to look at it, blockhain and digital currencies are gainging a lot of interest, and we wanted to explore this space by allowing our customers to view their Coinbase account balance directly in their online bank. This functionality only expose the account balance at Coinbase, and trading is not offered by the bank.
By utilizing the APIs offered by Coinbase this was made possible as an MVP (Minimum Viable Product), and is a demonstration of the possibilities within open banking. The ability to collaborate with third parties and view open APIs and third-party data as key resources for new business development will define the future of every industry aspring to transition from a linear value chain to a digital ecosystem.
Coinbase Connect expose all currencies traded at Coinbase, and this include bitcoin, ethereum and litecoin.
This feature will be released during the next couple of weeks, if you live in Norway with a Coinbase account make sure to sign up for Skandiabanken Beta to get access to this functionality.
This is good news and an exciting first step toward a new technological platform for financial services. It is also a glimpse of what to come as a result of the new payments directive from the EU. Of course, it would have been much more useful if you also could trade crypto currencies through Skandiabanken, and I guess that will come, sooner or later.
However, it is considered bad practise to leave your crypto currency at a third party service like Coinbase or any other exchange. If you don’t have your keys it’s not your money. The safe way is to store the private key yourself. The problem is, however, that this is difficult for mainstream adoption, and this is where the bank comes in. So the next move for Skandiabanken could be to offer some sort of escrow service for crypto currency owners with the use of a multisig solution so that you don’t hand over the money to the bank without any control yourself. It would be a digital representation of the old bank box.
Hi Christoffer! Thanks for your great blog, have been following you for some time. I’m a Frenchman based in Norway, and have just tried to Coinbase function on Skandiabanken, nice! (I guess that’s one of the results of your new job? :-))
It would be great to hear some of your general thoughts about Ethereum if you have looked any into it?
Thanks again! Keep up the good work!
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