BitGo Gains Entry to Digital Securities World Through Acquisition of Harbor

Digital asset custodial company BitGo recently unveiled its purchase of Harbor, an online platform for digitized securities. 

“Our vision has always been bigger than wallets and custody,” BitGo CEO Mike Belshe said in a Feb. 18 statement provided to Cointelegraph. “Acquiring Harbor furthers BitGo’s vision of building a new digital infrastructure for financial services.” 

Harbor’s website is also promoting the acquisition in a banner at the top of its homepage.  

BitGo’s acquisition includes several others

Picking up Harbor also means BitGo gains control of the platform’s daughter companies, which include brokerages and transfer entities. BitGo also recently gained control of crypto staking infrastructure firm Hedge. 

Overall, BitGo reportedly processes more than 20% of the world’s Bitcoin movements. 

BitGo worked alongside Harbor prior to acquisition

Before the takeover, BitGo had worked in partnership with Harbor since the digital securities platform’s beginnings, Harbor CEO Josh Stein said in the statement. 

“We’ve worked closely together to integrate BitGo Business Wallets and BitGo Custody into Harbor’s services,” Stein said, adding:

“Harbor provides BitGo with a complementary technology stack for the lifecycle of digital securities, as well as important service capabilities through our digital assets broker-dealer and transfer agent subsidiaries.”

Built in 2017, Harbor was the earliest blockchain business to gain FINRA broker-dealer registration in tandem with SEC licensing as a digital asset transfer entity, the BitGo statement said.  

BitGo also continues to develop its wallet offerings as the firm announced custodial support for Tron and EOS in the latter half of 2019.