iTrustCapital - Ensuring Quality Asset Listings

Updated May 11, 2023, 5:18 p.m. Published Sep 29, 2022, 10:04 p.m.

In Aesop’s Fable “The Lioness,” there’s a debate among the animals as to which one has the greatest amount of children. A fox brags that it has a whole litter and points out that the Lioness only has one. The Lioness laughs and responds, “I have only one; but that one is altogether a thoroughbred Lion.”

Quality over quantity. While this moral has been taught and applied for generations, it’s become increasingly relevant to the current state of cryptocurrency platforms.

A platform for HODLers

At the time of writing, Binance offers the ability to buy, sell and trade over 600 cryptocurrencies. In seeing the number of assets listed as a competitive advantage, many other crypto platforms have also tried to exponentially grow their total asset offerings.

But like the story of the Lioness, boasting about the quantity of assets misses the point. Users are more concerned about accessing a select number of “thoroughbred” assets than they are about their ability to access everything else.

Take iTrustCapital for example, which reached a unicorn valuation of $1.3 billion in January following its $125 million Series A funding round. The platform currently provides access to just 29 cryptocurrencies, in addition to its offerings of gold and silver. In comparison, there are currently over 200 cryptocurrencies listed on Coinbase.

Despite offering a fraction of the assets listed on Coinbase, HODLers have continued to use iTrustCapital’s software platform for self-trading assets. Since its launch in 2018, the crypto IRA provider has amassed over 40,000 accounts and reached $6 billion in total transaction volume as of April 2022.

Quality control for customers

Coinbase’s goal is to list every asset where it’s legal to do so. This listing process is not considered an endorsement of any particular asset; it merely signals that a token has met Coinbase’s minimum standards.

The process for asset listings on iTrustCapital is slightly different. In short, the platform takes three factors into consideration when adding a new asset:

Client Demand: Client sentiment and desire to add a particular asset in their IRA portfolios is a prerequisite for listing.
Liquidity: The token must have robust liquidity, with more than enough to provide access to 24/7 trading.
Custody: For assets to be maintained in an IRA, they must be available for qualified institutional custody.

Instead of listing assets as soon as possible, iTrustCapital weighs the security and viability of a cryptocurrency alongside the wants of its clients. The platform’s heightened diligence and close relationship with clients is a major factor in why the platform only offers 29 cryptocurrencies.

Members of the iTrustCapital community aren’t creating accounts to gain access to the next crypto that’s about to moon. They’re similarly not trying to get rich quick off the newest layer 1 asset to arrive on the scene. In fact they’re doing quite the opposite: holding cryptocurrency for the long term.

Even more reasons to trust

By focusing on listing quality assets and maintaining a direct relationship with its clients, iTrustCapital has been able to provide asset custody using well-developed and secure methods. Building alongside the open-source systems of a few strong assets, iTrustCapital uses proven secure digital asset storage solutions, including:

Institutional-grade offline storage (cold storage);
Multi-Party Computation (MPC);
Regular security and financial audits by external firms with SOC 1 Type II and/or SOC 2 Type 2 certifications; and
Commercial crime insurance policies.

Additionally, iTrustCapital never mixes client assets with operating funds, never lends against assets and does not take needless risk with clients’ crypto. Instead, it has opted for a client-first business model that emphasizes a quality experience, quality features and quality assets.

Like the Lioness from Aseop’s Fable, iTrustCapital has remained focused on this quality while others debate quantity. With a focus on the wants of its clients, the iTrustCapital platform provides a secure, straightforward solution to U.S. residents looking to gain exposure to cryptocurrency and hold it for the long term.