Citi (C) plans to supply crypto custody companies in 2026, enabling the financial institution to carry native digital property like bitcoin and ether on behalf of purchasers, in keeping with a report by CNBC.
The transfer marks one other step by the Wall Avenue financial institution into the digital asset house. Biswarup Chatterjee, Citi’s world head of partnerships and innovation for companies, stated the custody resolution has been in growth for 2 to a few years.
“We now have varied sorts of explorations,” Chatterjee advised CNBC. “We’re hoping that within the subsequent few quarters, we will come to market with a reputable custody resolution that we will supply to our asset managers and different purchasers.”
The custody plan would give institutional purchasers a regulated method to retailer crypto, a bit of infrastructure many conventional traders view as important for publicity to the sector.
Chatterjee stated Citi is pursuing a hybrid method, creating some custody instruments internally whereas additionally exploring outdoors partnerships.
“We might have sure options which can be utterly designed and constructed in-house … whereas we might use a third-party, light-weight, nimble resolution for different kinds of property,” he stated. “We’re not at present ruling out something.”
The custody providing would be part of a rising portfolio of digital asset experiments at Citi. Through the financial institution’s second-quarter earnings name in July, CEO Jane Fraser stated Citi can be exploring a stablecoin issuance, although she famous that tokenized deposits are a extra instant focus.
Final week, Citi Ventures invested in BVNK, a stablecoin funds startup, alongside Visa. That deal adopted earlier experiments in blockchain-based commerce finance and cross-border funds.
If launched, Citi’s custody service would place the financial institution amongst a small however rising group of conventional monetary establishments coming into the crypto again workplace.