For decades, Bitcoin and Wall Street spoke different languages. One of America’s biggest banks has now decided to build the translator.
Citibank, the third-largest bank in the United States, plans to roll out a Bitcoin custody infrastructure later this year, letting institutional clients hold the cryptocurrency alongside conventional assets such as stocks and bonds. The development caps three years of internal work and signals a deepening shift in how legacy finance views digital assets.
What the Infrastructure Actually Does
The setup covers custody, safekeeping, and private key management—taking the technical weight off clients who have long found crypto’s backend too cumbersome to deal with. Citi plugs the service directly into its existing reporting, tax, and compliance systems, so institutions never have to touch a private key themselves. The bank handles the operational complexity, leaving clients free to focus on the investment side of things.
The offering is squarely aimed at pension funds and insurance companies—large pools of capital that have stayed away from crypto largely because of its operational and regulatory headaches.
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Citi’s move comes on the heels of similar steps taken by JP Morgan and lands at a time when Bitcoin is gaining fresh ground following ETF approval. Still, Citi’s approach—weaving crypto custody into familiar compliance infrastructure—raises the standard for what serious institutional access to Bitcoin should look like. Indeed, Citibank is not just cracking open a door. It is rebuilding the entire entrance.
