BNY taps Figment to support staking on its digital asset custody platform
- Published
BNY has moved to add staking to its digital asset custody offering by working with Figment. The setup is aimed at institutional staking through BNY’s existing custody service.
Key claims & sources
What it means
BNY is one of the largest traditional financial firms active in digital assets, and its custody platform is the place where institutions already hold crypto assets under an established bank relationship. Adding staking to that service puts a familiar custody product closer to the mechanics of proof-of-stake networks, where holding and validating are linked but operationally distinct. Figment’s role in validator infrastructure shows that BNY is not trying to do this alone, but through a specialized staking provider.
Institutional clients using BNY’s custody service now have a path toward staking inside a bank-led workflow instead of moving assets elsewhere to participate. That can reduce the need to stitch together separate custodians, validators, and operational processes, while also making staking more accessible through an existing service. At the same time, it concentrates more functions around one platform, which is a different model from the more fragmented setup many crypto-native users are used to. (per cryptobriefing.com)
The arrangement sits at the intersection of two different approaches to crypto: bank-grade custody and blockchain-native validation. BNY’s move shows that staking is no longer only a niche service for crypto firms, and it also raises the question of how much of the network’s activity becomes mediated by large financial institutions and their partners. The trade-off is between easier institutional access and a more centralized distribution of infrastructure and operational control.
Still open is how broadly BNY will roll out staking within its custody offering and which assets or client segments will be included. The two items do not say when the service will be available or how the operational responsibilities will be divided between BNY and Figment. Those details will determine how the product works in practice for institutional clients.
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