Banks Move Into Digital Asset Custody

Digital asset custody does not mean depositing tokens in a bank. It means safeguarding the private keys that control clients’ on-chain assets. As stablecoins, tokenized securities and DeFi expand, banks that cannot connect to blockchains risk losing asset-management business, transaction settlement and customer relationships. U.S. banks held about $34 trillion in assets under custody as of June 2024, putting a vast market at stake in the transition.

American Banker argued on March 20, 2026, that banks should develop digital asset custody capabilities. On April 9, Veda Tech Labs Chief Legal Officer TuongVy Le also urged the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish a regulatory framework for on-chain custody and yield. She warned that banks lost hundreds of billions of dollars in deposits to money-market funds in the 1970s, and that regulatory delays could again drive funds and high-value clients toward on-chain platforms.