US bank Citigroup is looking into the possibility of providing cryptocurreny-related services as demand for digital assets continues to grow.
The Wall Street bank says bitcoin, in particular, is at a tipping point and the cryptocurrency could become “the currency of choice for international trade.”
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The firm wrote in a report that “we could be at the start of massive transformation of cryptocurrency into the mainstream.”
Itay Tuchman, the bank’s global head of foreign exchange, said trading, custody and financing were under consideration, although added that the bank had not yet decided if it would offer cryptocurrency-related services for its clients.
A surge of clients investing in cryptocurrencies
“There are different options from our perspective, and we are considering where we can best service clients. This is not going to be a prop-trading [proprietary trading] effort,” Tuchman said.
“We shouldn’t do anything that’s not safe and sound. We will jump in when we are confident that we can build something that benefits clients and that regulators can support,” he added.
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By GlobalDataCryptocurrencies have boomed over the last year as prices hit fresh highs and several Wall Street banks have ventured into the fray as institutional investors show more interest in the volatile assets.
Last month, JPMorgan was said to be preparing to offer an actively managed bitcoin-linked fund to select clients this summer.
Rival Morgan Stanley announced in March that it would be launching access to three bitcoin-linked funds and Goldman Sachs relaunched its cryptocurrency trading desk that same month.
Wall Street embraces cryptocurrencies
Traders will also soon be able to track the performance of the world’s two biggest cryptocurrencies – bitcoin and ether – on Wall Street with S&P Dow Jones Indices announcing several new crypto indices.
Two are being launched to track the individual performance of bitcoin and ether, while a third, the S&P Cryptocurrency MegaCap Index, will measure the performance of bitcoin and ether combined.
