State Street clients aren't heavily investing in crypto, but it's prepared for that to change

Custody bank State Street is looking at bitcoin as the first iteration of the global digital asset, according to managing director of digital product and development Jay Biancamano. From Biancamano's vantage point, all assets will eventually trade on blockchain. He discussed the future of custodying digital assets at State Street on this week's episode of The Scoop. Listen on Spotify, iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher.

 

"For us it's more of a future play to look at how this market is going to evolve, and if we went back two years ago obviously the conversation was all Bitcoin," he said.

 

Global custodians like State Street or large exchanges like NASDAQ or the New York Stock Exchange set the standard for how the global economy trades, according to Biancamano. For now, State Street is looking into certain cryptocurrencies, digital assets and securitized assets. Some tokens, such as utility tokens are still out of scope, according to Biancamano. 

 

"You know we're intensely led by our clients, and our clients right now, the ones we deal with, are not investing in cryptocurrencies for a number of reasons. Obviously regulation has to do with it and custody is one piece of it," he said.

 

The aim is to enable clients to seamlessly invest in any asset, traditional or digital. Biancamano said State Street is currently able to provide those services and preparing for a shift towards the digital, since Biancamano said it's a matter of time, already seeing some clients move towards digital offerings.