Deutsche Bank Opens Bitcoin and Ethereum Custody to Its Paying Clients

Deutsche Bank launched its cryptocurrency custody service in Europe on Wednesday and began accepting paying corporate and institutional clients. The service supports Bitcoin and Ether, and the launch follows the bank’s September announcement of its European custody plans. Germany’s largest lender also plans to enter Asia and develop tokenization and transaction settlement services. Deutsche Bank Launches Bitcoin Custody in Europe Deutsche Bank included Bitcoin in its September list of cryptocurrencies for the planned service in its initial rollout. The lender made the opening conditional on the necessary regulatory approvals and set out plans for a regulated European platform. Wednesday’s announcement marked the shift from a proposed service to a commercial offering. Corporate and institutional customers can now place their Bitcoin holdings with Deutsche Bank for safekeeping under a third-party custody arrangement. The customer retains ownership of the holdings, and the bank takes responsibility for storing them on the customer’s behalf. Businesses and institutions can use that arrangement for their existing Bitcoin holdings. Meanwhile, Galaxy Digital has applied for a US national trust bank charter as part of its financial services expansion. The company seeks federal oversight for those operations, and its application brings the proposal before US banking regulators. That application adds to activity among financial firms pursuing regulated digital asset businesses in their respective markets. Ethereum Custody Forms Part of a Wider Plan Deutsche Bank’s platform also holds Ether, the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network, for customers of the custody service. Alongside safekeeping, the lender has identified tokenization and transaction settlement as areas for development within its digital asset business. Tokenization represents assets or ownership rights through digital tokens, and settlement completes a transaction through the transfer of assets. Paul Maley, the bank’s global head of trust and securities services, outlined the lender’s plans for those functions. The medium-term plan calls for custody, tokenization and settlement within the same regulated operation, with safekeeping as the starting point. The lender is also exploring digital payments as another potential area of work in digital finance. Separately, Chainlink and Anchorage Digital introduced CustodySync to connect assets in institutional custody with lending markets on decentralized platforms. Anchorage Digital handles collateral management, and Chainlink provides blockchain-based verification and pricing for the service. The arrangement gives institutions a way to use their holdings as collateral through a link between custody and lending. Deutsche Bank Plans Asia Expansion and Asset Management Cooperation Deutsche Bank previously identified Asia as its next region for digital asset custody. The lender has yet to announce a date for the Asian launch or name the markets for its initial rollout. The planned expansion would extend the bank’s custody business beyond Europe.