TradFi Giants Embrace Crypto as 'Long Bitcoin, Short the Bankers' Era Ends
Key points
- Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley said two unnamed financial institutions each managing over one trillion dollars approved crypto products during the current bear market, a step that did not occur during the 2022 downturn.
- Sygnum CIO Fabian Dori described the bank-to-crypto shift as structural rather than cyclical, driven by client demand and clearer regulation, with banks now building custody, tokenisation, and regulated trading capabilities.
- Anchorage Digital CEO Nathan McCauley said large firms are partnering with specialist providers rather than building in-house, and that real-world asset tokenisation and crypto wrappers from major asset managers are merging traditional and decentralised finance into a single sector.
- Early institutional entrants identified in the source include Swissquote (2017), DBS (2020), BBVA (2021), BNY Mellon (2022), and later Standard Chartered, Charles Schwab, SoFi, and Morgan Stanley.
- Dori cautioned that institutionalisation has added infrastructure without changing crypto's reflexive, narrative-driven trading character, suggesting volatility risk persists despite broader participation.
A generational shift in the relationship between traditional finance and digital assets appears to have reached a decisive inflection point, according to senior figures at Bitwise and Sygnum speaking to CoinDesk. Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley reported that two financial institutions each managing more than a trillion dollars in investor assets approved crypto products during the current bear market, a contrast he drew explicitly with the 2022 downturn when institutions of that scale kept the door firmly shut. The firms were not identified, and Bitwise declined to clarify what the approvals cover or when clients will gain access.
Sygnum Chief Investment Officer Fabian Dori framed the change as structural rather than cyclical, attributing it to client demand and regulatory clarity. Banks have moved from resisting digital assets to actively building custody, tokenisation, and regulated trading infrastructure, he argued. Anchorage Digital CEO Nathan McCauley added that large financial firms are increasingly choosing to partner with specialist providers rather than construct their own infrastructure, and that the convergence of real-world assets coming onchain with crypto wrappers issued by major asset managers is eroding the boundary between the two worlds.
The timeline of bank entry sketched out in the piece illustrates how gradual the build-up has been: Swissquote added bitcoin trading in 2017, DBS followed in 2020, BBVA in 2021, BNY Mellon began institutional custody in 2022, and subsequent years brought in Standard Chartered, Charles Schwab, SoFi, Morgan Stanley, and others. The structural shift carries a caveat, however: Dori noted that institutionalisation has layered new infrastructure onto crypto’s reflexive, narrative-driven trading patterns rather than replacing them, meaning price volatility and market character remain as before.
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