Institutional Custodian State Street Awaits Higher Crypto Custody Client Interest Before Providing Services

Institutional custodian State Street has been questioned about whether it is interested in safeguarding crypto assets as well. In response, the company signaled that such a move isn’t urgent.

Jay Biancamano, the platform’s managing director for digital product development spoke at the American Banker BlockFS. There, he recognized that indeed, there is a “high level of interest,” but “There is no sense of urgency on the part of our clients to move into these assets right now. When they do, we want to meet them here.” He added,

“There is a very high level of interest but no need to move because currently none of our clients are looking for us to house these assets in custody.”

Large institutions such as Fidelity Investments have become more interested in cryptocurrencies and as a result, like-platforms have been anticipating for institutional custody solutions. Biancamano stated,

“We follow our clients’ assets. We do talk to our clients who are interested in doing this and we are looking at this very closely. But we are not putting a sign that we are opening for business. That say, we are a blockchain-friendly firm; we are very involved in the vertical.”

When asked how regulation will work with custody solutions for cryptocurrency, he stated that the SEC has been cooperating with traditional providers to understand the current condition of the market, in which he termed “refreshing.” Biancamano concluded, “It’s not just about the current cryptocurrency; it’s also about tokenization and digitalization of traditional assets too.”