Cryptocurrency market is growing day by day with huge trading demand from small investors to many large and wealthy customers. Therefore, the “big guys” in the financial industry will not be able to miss such a potential segment!

In fact, according to data from Block Data, 55 banks in the “top 100” are investing in companies operating in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space. Among them, there are some prominent names such as Barclays (19), Citigroup (9), Goldman Sachs (8), JPMorgan Chase (7) and BNP Paribas (6).

*The number in parentheses is the number of businesses in the cryptocurrency segment that these banking giants have invested in.

Besides, some other banks do not invest “much”, but they are very “quality” when they have a huge amount of money. Some names include:

• Standard Chartered invested a total of $380 million in 6 rounds
• BNY Mellon invested a total of 320.69 million USD in 5 rounds
• Citigroup invested a total of 279.49 million USD in 9 rounds
• UBS Group invested a total of 266.2 million USD in 5 rounds
• BNP Paribas invested a total of 236.05 million USD in 9 rounds

Despite constantly voicing warnings about investing in Bitcoin (BTC), banks do not ignore the potential revenue source that it brings. Specifically, crypto custody services.

In fact, many users don’t necessarily need custodians to store cryptocurrencies on their behalf. However, this need still exists in many customers. Because not everyone is comfortable with having full control over their assets. Especially large corporate or institutional investors. For them, choosing a company (or maybe a bank) to hold and manage cryptocurrencies on their behalf would be a great solution.

That’s why many banks are now trying to provide this service. Although the banks themselves have had a long time warning customers as well as “ruling out” cryptocurrencies. And JPMorgan is a prime example. The financial giant has repeatedly warned about cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin. However, in the end, JPMorgan is providing up to 6 cryptocurrency trading services for its customers.

Or as Bank of America (BoA) also allows some customers to trade Bitcoin futures. Recently, BoA even invested in Paxos Standard, the company behind two stablecoins, PAX and BUSD. Perhaps the above moves of banks have been revealing a signal that “in the not too distant future, cryptocurrencies will be widely accepted at banks”.