BNY Mellon Invests In Cryptocurrency Custodian Fireblocks

Bank of New York Mellon BK, one of the largest custody banks in the world, has invested in cryptocurrency custodian Fireblocks.

What Happened: The strategic investment was part of a $133 million Series C venture capital fundraise led by Coatue, Ribbit, and Stripes.

“Engineering is going to be a major part of our spend,” said Fireblocks’ CEO and co-founder Michael Shaulov to Forbes, explaining how the raised capital would be put to use to expand its infrastructure for its existing customer base.

Over the past few months, the firm has focused on onboarding new clients and has completed a $400 billion digital asset transfer for approximately 230 clients, including banks, hedge funds, fintech firms, and cryptocurrency exchanges.

Shaulov also stated that the firm “closely advises” 50% of the top 70 banks in the world and is developing pilot products for five multinational banks.

Why It Matters: Earlier this year, BNY Mellon said it would offer Bitcoin and other crypto custody services to its clients. The strategic investment in the up-and-coming cryptocurrency custodian may be part of the bank’s plans to offer the country’s first multi-asset digital custody platform to service both traditional assets and digital assets.

“Developing products to bridge digital and traditional assets is foundational to the future of custody,” said Roman Regelman, Chief Executive Officer of Asset Servicing and Head of Digital at BNY Mellon.

“Following significant due diligence and market research, we recognize Fireblocks as a market leader in providing secure technology to support digital asset services.”

Fireblocks was also the custodian of choice for Facebook, Inc’s FB rebranded cryptocurrency Diem, which is expected to launch later this year.

Price Action: BNY Mellon shares closed at $46.70, 0.40% higher.

The market-leading cryptocurrency Bitcoin was trading at $58,142 at press time, up 0.26% in the past 24 hours.