Custodial Wallets

Custodial Wallets require a business account. If you’re interested in using this product, get in touch and our team will follow up to discuss fit.

Custodial Wallets hold balances in one or more assets (for example USD, USDC, or other supported crypto) and act as the source or target for deposits, transfers, and payouts you orchestrate from your backend. Coinbase provides custody for assets in these accounts on behalf of your CDP entity. You can create entity-owned accounts for treasury, settlement, and operational balances, and customer-owned accounts for balances attributed to your KYC-verified end users via Customers & KYC. If your organization already uses Coinbase Prime or Coinbase Business, you can also link an existing account and operate it through the same CDP APIs.

How accounts fit your integration

Typical flows build on three ideas:

Create and name accounts to segment funds (for example per merchant, product line, or settlement bucket), or link an existing Coinbase Prime portfolio or Coinbase Business account.
Receive value using deposit destinations. Crypto deposit addresses are the supported path for inbound funds today. Fiat deposit destinations are in active development.
Move value using transfers between accounts, to external onchain addresses, to linked Coinbase balances where supported, or through other supported rails.

Account ownership models

Custodial balances can be held in Custodial Wallet accounts you create with the Accounts API (type: cdp) or in accounts linked from Coinbase Prime (type: prime) or Coinbase Business (type: business).

Model	Account type	Who owns the balance	Typical use
Entity account	`cdp`	Your CDP organization	Company treasury, settlement pools, operational hot balances
Customer account	`cdp`	Your end customer under an approved program	Per-user balances, payouts, and disclosures where you need customer-level ledgering
Linked Prime account	`prime`	Your Coinbase Prime portfolio	Existing Prime balances you want to operate through CDP APIs
Linked Business account	`business`	Your Coinbase Business account	Existing Coinbase Business balances you want to operate through CDP APIs

To create a customer-owned account, pass the customer ID as owner on POST /v2/accounts. The customer must hold all three custody capabilities (custodyCrypto, custodyFiat, and custodyStablecoin). See the Customers quickstart for an end-to-end example.

Custodial Wallet accounts vs. linked accounts

In Live, Custodial Wallet accounts (type: cdp) are created and operated through the CDP APIs. They run on the same infrastructure that powers Coinbase Prime portfolios and integrate more seamlessly with CDP webhooks and data APIs, including webhook notifications as new features become available. There is no Live UI for manually operating these accounts. In Sandbox, use the CDP Portal to create test accounts and add simulated balances. See Sandbox overview for details. Linked Prime accounts (type: prime) let you connect an existing Coinbase Prime portfolio instead of moving funds into a Custodial Wallet account you create. After linking, you can use supported CDP data, transfer, and payment APIs to interact with the portfolio programmatically, and you can still sign in to Coinbase Prime to view and manually operate the same portfolio in the Prime UI. Coinbase Business accounts (type: business) can be linked in the same way. Linking requires the CDP Admin role. In the CDP Portal, open Accounts, select Link account, and choose the Prime portfolio or Coinbase Business account you want to make available. See Initial Setup for the complete linking steps.

Supported assets and networks

Your entity configuration and environment determine which assets, networks, and settlement behavior are available. Verify your account setup before moving funds.

Core API operations

Operation	What it does
Create account	`POST /v2/accounts` — provision a new Custodial Wallet account (optional display `name`, optional idempotency header)
Get account	`GET /v2/accounts/{accountId}` — metadata such as type, owner, and timestamps
List accounts	`GET /v2/accounts` — paginated accounts for your entity
List balances	`GET /v2/accounts/{accountId}/balances` — balances per asset
Get balance for asset	`GET /v2/accounts/{accountId}/balances/{asset}` — single-asset balance detail

Authentication follows the same CDP API key and JWT model as the rest of the platform. See Authentication and Idempotency for request signing and safe retries.