What Banks Should Consider Before Diving Back Into Digital Assets

What we are seeing present is renewed involvement successful integer assets from banks crossed the committee — from recognition unions and assemblage banks to midsize and determination players to Wall Street giants.

Mar 19, 2025, 3:03 p.m. UTC

2025 volition beryllium the twelvemonth banks jump backmost into integer assets, reversing years of caution owed to a challenging regulatory and marketplace environment. Following the withdrawal of SAB 121 and new guidance from a cardinal national banking regulator, banks are present backmost successful the contention to make crypto strategies to work their clients and enactment competitive.

What we are seeing present is renewed involvement from banks crossed the committee — from recognition unions and assemblage banks to midsize and determination players to Wall Street giants. What is astatine involvement for banks are existing and prospective lawsuit relationships arsenic they vie for marketplace stock among retail and organization participants looking to prosecute successful integer assets. Banks that pb the mode volition beryllium capable to differentiate their products and make capital-efficient gross streams.

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For reasons some taste and technological, galore banks whitethorn extremity up either licensing custody solutions to usage in-house, oregon partnering with a crypto-native sub-custodian. One of the astir important decisions a slope has to marque is who they take arsenic a custody spouse — a captious question arsenic cybersecurity incidents proceed to gully headlines.

From information and regulatory presumption to time-to-market, what should banks beryllium considering arsenic they dive backmost into integer assets?

Time-to-market and regulatory status

One of the archetypal things immoderate slope should see is however their attack volition interaction time-to-market strategy and competitory positioning. For banks, moving with a regulated custodian is much than conscionable a box-checking exercise.

Partnering with a crypto custodian that has built a broad hazard absorption and compliance infrastructure — from AML and KYC controls to accusation information policies — tin springiness banks a streamlined go-to-market strategy. Banks and their crypto partners should not lone talk the aforesaid language, but beryllium regulated connected the aforesaid footing.

Crypto partners request to show that they conscionable — and transcend — slope regulatory expectations. Doing truthful tin assistance to get regulators and elder slope enactment connected board, successful summation to creating peace-of-mind among clients.

Safety and resiliency

Banks getting into crypto privation to bash truthful quickly, but besides safely successful bid to support the hard-earned spot of their clients. That is wherefore banks often enactment information front-and-center successful the hunt for a crypto custodian.

As a baseline, immoderate crypto custody spouse should instrumentality an end-to-end attack to security, involving aggregate lines of defence for each transaction. The custody spouse should besides person successful spot robust exertion to assistance guarantee each transaction reflects lawsuit intent. Keeping assets legally separated from those of different clients and the steadfast tin assistance to mitigate risk.

Finally, custody solutions should conscionable the stringent operational resiliency standards that banks are held to, truthful they tin standard alongside the bank’s integer plus business.

Integrated solution

Banks should besides see easiness of integration into existing systems, arsenic good arsenic the quality to enactment aboriginal merchandise and gross streams. Integrating crypto custody into halfway banking systems tin assistance to optimize gross opportunities, operational ratio and time-to-market.

Secure custody is truly the instauration for further offerings — from collateralized lending to trading to staking. As banks look to conscionable end-client request for afloat information successful the ecosystem, moving with a custodian that offers an integrated suite of services is key.

This twelvemonth volition beryllium a turning constituent for crypto adoption crossed accepted banks of each sizes, with crypto-native custody solutions providing a wide way for banks to enactment competitory and conscionable lawsuit demand.

Nathan McCauley

Nathan McCauley is the co-founder and CEO of Anchorage Digital, a crypto level that enables institutions to enactment successful integer assets done custody, staking, trading, governance, settlement, and the industry’s starring information infrastructure. It is location to the archetypal federally chartered integer plus slope successful the United States.Prior to founding Anchorage Digital, Nathan led information engineering teams astatine Square and Docker.