Cryptocurrency custodian startup Anchorage has launched trading services for its customers, enabling them to buy and sell digital assets direct with vault-stored funds.

Announced on Wednesday, the San Francisco-based company has also made its first acquisition with data analytics firm Merkle Data. However, the involved amount has not been disclosed.

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Anchorage is a big name among institutional players in the crypto industry for custody needs. The company is well strapped with total funding of $57 million and is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Polychain, and Blockchain Capital.

Similar to its custodian services, the firm’s new brokerage business, dubbed Anchorage Trading, will only be limited to institutional clients. The platform will also charge traders a fee of 10 basis points per trade for the involved amount.

The trading feature by the custodian was introduced with increasing demand from its customer base for such a facility. The platform offers efficient execution across multiple venues, routing orders to get clients the optimal price, the official announcement outlined.

A strategic acquisition

Meanwhile, the acquisition of Merkle Data came with the custodian’s move into the brokerage arena. The platform is expecting to have a significant advantage with Merkle’s data analytics capabilities, and its technology is already integrated into Anchorage’s services.

Merkle developed an intelligent data-based algorithm to detect manipulative behaviors and other risks in the crypto market.

“We are joining forces to further our shared mission of serving institutional crypto investors and strengthening the crypto financial system,” said Louis Baudoin, chief executive of Merkle Data. “For the past 18 months, Merkle Data has been building the most advanced risk and data solution on the market, while Anchorage has built the most advanced and user-friendly custody solution. We’ve long admired Anchorage’s team and product, and we couldn’t be more proud to be joining them.”