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Bitcoin News
More than half of the top U.S. banks have either started offering or announced plans to offer Bitcoin-related services such as trading or custody, says Bitcoin financial services firm River.
$RIVER shared a list in an X post on Monday of the top 25 institutions operating in the U.S., writing, “60% of the top U.S. banks are into Bitcoin.”
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said most banking executives he met at the Davos World Economic Forum in Switzerland were embracing crypto as a business opportunity. One CEO from a top-10 global bank told Armstrong that crypto ranks as their number one priority and poses an existential question for traditional finance. The Davos forum ran from Jan. 19 to Jan. 23.
Three of the Big Four U.S. banks appear on River's list. JPMorgan Chase is weighing crypto trading additions, Wells Fargo provides Bitcoin-backed loans to institutional clients, and Citigroup is exploring custody services. These three institutions control over $7.3 trillion in combined assets, Forbes data shows.
Swiss banking giant UBS, which operates in the U.S., is exploring Bitcoin and Ethereum trading for wealthy private banking clients, Bloomberg reported Friday. The move marks the most recent addition to River's tracking.
Bank of America, the second-largest U.S. bank with $2.67 trillion in assets, has not disclosed any Bitcoin service plans. Capital One holds $694 billion in assets, and Truist Bank has $536 billion, but neither has announced crypto offerings.
U.S. banks previously faced accusations of participating in Operation Chokepoint 2.0, an alleged government effort to cut off crypto companies from banking services. The industry shift toward Bitcoin services represents a reversal from that stance.