Banks and crypto: from "fraud" to custody services in one decade

Ten years ago the heads of the largest banks called bitcoin fraud. Today the same banks offer clients crypto products. The turn is not ideological - it is economic.

What broke the ice

Three forces. Client demand: when wealth divisions lose rich clients to crypto brokers, ideology ends. Regulatory clarity: ETFs, licensing regimes, and accounting rules removed the career risk for bankers. Competition: once the first systemic bank launched custody, the rest had no choice.

What banks actually do

• Custody - storage for funds and corporations: the role a bank understands best.
• ETF access and structured products - exposure without touching the asset itself.
• Tokenizing their own: deposits, funds, repo on private and public networks - blockchain as settlement rails with the bank still the middleman.
• Stablecoin infrastructure: issuers' reserve accounts, consortium coins of their own.

Note the asymmetry: banks take the rails and the fees from crypto, not the philosophy. Decentralization in their version ends at a permissioned blockchain with a whitelist. For the market it is bullish anyway: every bank product is another pipe for capital. We keep the chronicle in the section.