America’s oldest bank, the Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, commonly known as BNY Mellon, has announced the financial institution can now custody cryptocurrencies. Wall Street Journal published Tuesday’s report that BNY Mellon had been approved by New York State Department of Financial Services. According to the Wall Street Journal, the bank stated it was one of eight financial heavyweights who started crypto asset custody.
BNY Mellon will start custody services for Bitcoin and Ethereum in the interest of its customers
Last fall, New York’s financial regulator DFS gave BNY Mellon (NYSE: BK) approval to custody cryptocurrencies and a report published by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) says the bank is ready to begin. BNY Mellon will store a crypto asset owner’s private keys, according to the report, in a similar fashion to the way it manages bonds, stocks, and other types of assets on behalf of its customers.
BNY Mellon is America’s oldest bank founded in 1784 by Alexander Hamilton, and it manages more than 40 trillion nominal U.S. dollars in assets. The financial giant managed $2.4 trillion of assets (AUM) in 2021. The report written by WSJ contributor Justin Baer explains that BNY Mellon says it’s the first of eight “systemically important” banks in the U.S. that have been approved by financial regulators to custody digital assets.
BNY Mellon was a pioneer in cryptocurrency and urged the authorities of Ireland in October 2021 to establish regulatory standards in order for them to manage crypto assets prior European Union regulations. In April 2022, the bank was chosen by Circle Financial to custody the stablecoin usd coin’s (USDC) reserves. BNY Mellon, which had invested in Talos (an institutional digital asset provider) the following month, joined other banks such as Citi and Wells Fargo.
BNY Mellon has been utilizing Fireblocks software to manage its custody solutions, according to a WSJ article published Tuesday. Furthermore, it is also using software developed by the blockchain surveillance firm Chainalysis so it can analyze crypto assets that are held within the bank’s confines. The financial institution explained that it would use Fireblocks, Chainalysis and also stated that it initially will hold bitcoin (BTC), and ethereum(ETH) for its clients.
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