Written by: Blockchain Knight
Recently, BitGo released a significant report titled "Crypto Infrastructure for Banks." The following is a summary of its core content.
By 2025, digital assets have entered a stage of scaled development, becoming a core track for modern financial institutions and redefining how banks attract deposits, generate revenue, and manage cross-border capital flows.
Technologies once considered experimental, such as stablecoins, tokenization, and digital custody, have now become essential infrastructure for financial institutions. For banks, entering the digital asset space has shifted from an option to a strategic necessity.
The trend of institutionalization in the crypto asset industry is now evident. Top global financial institutions like BlackRock, Fidelity, VISA, and J.P. Morgan are actively deploying in areas including tokenized funds, stablecoin settlements, and crypto trading.
Industry data shows there are 716 million crypto asset owners globally, with 40-70 million monthly active users, and approximately 10 million new users were added last year.
Crypto ETFs manage assets exceeding $225 billion, with BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF becoming the fastest-growing ETF on Wall Street.
Stablecoins have performed exceptionally well, with monthly settlement volumes often surpassing $1 trillion. Their transaction scale rivals that of traditional card networks, and their correlation with spot crypto trading has decreased, signaling the industry's shift from speculation to practical application.
Meanwhile, over half of top US banks are piloting or evaluating digital asset businesses. Generation Z's acceptance of bank crypto services (17%) is significantly higher than the overall population (9%).
The refinement of global regulatory systems has cleared policy obstacles for banks' entry. The US passed the GENIUS Act in July 2025, explicitly allowing banks to become compliant stablecoin issuers, with the supporting CLARITY Act awaiting Senate approval.
The EU has implemented the MiCA framework, while Singapore and Hong Kong, China have strengthened custody rules and introduced crypto asset exchange licenses, forming a clear and unified global regulatory framework.
Demographically, Americans under 43 allocate 14% of their investment portfolios to crypto assets, compared to just 1% for those 44 and older. The demand from younger demographics is driving the need for bank crypto services.
In terms of commercial value, crypto services can help retain customer deposits and expand international business. Blockchain technology can also reduce operational costs and improve liquidity management efficiency.
Digital assets open up diverse revenue streams for banks and are highly compatible with existing businesses.
Banks can earn service fees, custody income, and exchange spreads through stablecoin businesses; generate commissions and spreads through crypto trading; earn commissions via staking services; charge custody and reporting fees by providing digital asset vault services; and leverage stablecoins for cross-border remittances, earning exchange and settlement spreads.
To enter the digital asset space, banks need to build a core infrastructure that is adaptable, with each module based on programmable blockchains.
Simultaneously, they must establish supporting facilities for staking, wealth management, financing/credit, and stablecoin issuance to adapt to tokenization development. This field is projected to reach a scale of $23.4 trillion by 2033, becoming a significant growth driver for wealth management services.
Banks have two compliant models for operating digital asset businesses: First, leveraging their own licenses and mature KYC/AML systems to extend compliance processes and control compliance risks. Second, partnering with third-party licensed institutions, outsourcing compliance technical work to transfer operational risks, reduce investment, and launch services quickly.
