Financial services giant State Street, having over $32 trillion in client assets under custody and nearly $3 trillion in assets under management, has partnered with cryptocurrency custodian Gemini Trust for a new digital assets trial.
Announced Tuesday, State Street said the trial, “the first of its kind,” will examine reporting scenarios for digital assets. It will track a reporting process for two cryptocurrencies - bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) - that are held for a user in Gemini's custody service, a State Street spokesperson told The Block.
“It allows the user to consolidate the reporting of their digital assets serviced by Gemini, an independent digital asset custodian, with their traditional assets serviced by State Street,” per the announcement.
State Street further said that the trial could be adapted to report holdings of other cryptocurrencies, such as security tokens, at some point.
“There is small, but growing demand from our clients for solutions of this type and many technical, operational, regulatory, and legal considerations to be addressed. That is why we have opted for an open model, and started a pilot with Gemini as an established, regulated player in the digital asset space,” said Ralph Achkar, managing director of digital product development and innovation at State Street.
State Street already acts as the custodian of U.S. dollars that correspond to the Gemini dollar stablecoin (GUSD). "With trillions of dollars in assets under management, State Street will never compromise on security — and neither will we," said Tyler Winklevoss, CEO of Gemini in Tuesday's announcement, adding:
"Traditional investors will more seamlessly be able to allocate capital in their portfolio to digital assets through trusted and regulated financial institutions — helping us build a better bridge to the future of money."
State Street is working on "a number of proof of concepts," Jay Biancamano, State Street’s managing director of digital product and development, recently told The Block in a podcast episode of The Scoop. “Ones that are a bit more nascent include ideas like issuance and tokenization of existing assets, whereas the earlier POCs are more of a learning process for existing process, these latter ones are new opportunities," he added.
from The Block https://ift.tt/2YYsqhO
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