Abra unveils new platforms for private and institutional clients

Cryptocurrency investment platform Abra unveiled two new products, Abra Private and Abra Prime, on Wednesday to service more well-heeled customers. 

Abra Private focuses on private clients, family offices and trusts while Abra Prime will serve institutional customers such as hedge funds, venture capital firms and crypto infrastructure companies, according to a release shared with The Block. 

The firm's subsidiary, Abra Capital Management LP, also obtained approval from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission to serve as a registered investment advisor. 

"We see significant demand for a trustworthy and safe platform to earn yield on Bitcoin,  Ethereum and other crypto assets and borrow against crypto holdings," said the firm's head of asset management, Marissa Kim, in a statement. "We allow our clients to access the DeFi markets without requiring investors to navigate the complexity themselves."

Abra provides borrowing, lending, staking, yield and OTC trading for consumers, offering over 75 cryptocurrencies as well as stablecoins like USDT (Tether), Paxos, TrueUSD and DAI.

“We launched Abra a decade ago as one of the first companies working to develop a novel type of borderless and trustless decentralized global payment infrastructure," founder and CEO Bill Barhydt said in the release. "We have evolved significantly since then and leveraged that experience to create an integrated prime services and wealth management offering powered by DeFi expertise."

The firm has several other products, including Abra Earn and Abra Boost. The Texas State Securities Board sued Abra for alleged securities fraud and deception in July 2023 and settled with the firm in late January of this year, The Block previously reported. At the time of settlement, the firm had amassed roughly $13.6 million in cryptocurrencies from more than 12,000 U.S. investors.