More Than Half of U.S. Banks Are Ready to Adopt Bitcoin

According to analysts at River, 60% of the top 25 largest banks operating in the U.S. are involved in Bitcoin-based infrastructure in one way or another. This includes both existing products and publicly announced plans to launch crypto services.

River’s list includes the three biggest U.S. banks, whose combined assets under management exceed $7.3 trillion, according to Forbes. In particular:

• JPMorgan Chase, managing $3.79 trillion, announced that it’s considering launching crypto trading;
• Wells Fargo Bank, managing $1.75 trillion, already offers institutional clients loans secured by BTC;
• Citibank, managing $1.83 trillion, is exploring the launch of custodial services for institutional investors.

River’s list also includes the Swiss bank UBS, which manages $4.7 trillion in assets and is actively operating in the U.S. UBS is studying the possibility of offering BTC and ETH trading to high-net-worth clients.

A shift in banks’ attitudes toward crypto-assets was also noted by Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, during his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos. He said that most banking executives he spoke with expressed a positive stance toward cryptocurrencies. According to him, one CEO of a top-10 global financial institution called crypto a number-one priority and said it’s “existential” for businesses.

Despite River’s illustrative data, a number of systemically important banks still remain outside the crypto market. These include Bank of America, managing more than $2.67 trillion in assets, Capital One with around $694 billion, and Truist Bank, managing $536 billion.

Although there’s growing interest in Bitcoin, banks continue to take a critical view of certain segments of the crypto market. Recently, the American Bankers Association (ABA) spoke out against yield-bearing products based on stablecoins, considering them a potential source of systemic risk to the financial system.