A news publishing house reported that BNY Mellon is prepared to start custody of cryptocurrency after receiving authorization from New York’s financial regulator DFS last October. According to the report, BNY Mellon would manage a crypto asset owner’s private keys similarly to how it manages bonds, equities, and other kinds of assets on behalf of its clients.
The oldest bank in the United States, BNY Mellon, was established in 1784 by Alexander Hamilton, and it currently oversees more than 40 trillion nominal dollars in assets. The financial behemoth managed $2.4 trillion in assets in 2021. According to the article, BNY Mellon claims that it is the first of eight “systemically essential” institutions that have been allowed by regulators in the US.
BNY Mellon will use software from Fireblocks for its custody solution. It also makes use of technologies created by Chainalysis, a blockchain monitoring company, to examine digital assets kept inside the bank’s walls.
The banking institution highlighted that it will first take custody of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) on behalf of its clients and that it will use Fireblocks and Chainalysis.
Since BNY Mellon has been investing in cryptocurrencies for a while, it recommended that Irish authorities implement regulatory requirements for digital assets in October 2021 before the European Union formalized legislation. Circle Financial selected the bank in April 2022 to hold the stablecoin USD coin’s (USDC) reserves in custody.
The following month, BNY Mellon invested in institutional digital asset technology vendor Talos, joining other banks like Wells Fargo and Citi.