Deutsche Bank digital asset custody was included in the list of financial products and services in a World Economic Forum (WEF) report in December 2020.

Though the report saw little attention upon publication, Deutsche Bank has been quietly building an array of services beginning with a custodial platform for institutional clients. 

The multinational bank is building a “bridge” between digital assets and traditional banking services, starting with institutional investors according to the report. 

On a page entitled “Deutsche Bank Digital Asset Custody,” the report states that “The bank has completed its proof of concept and is aiming for a minimum viable product in 2021,” exploring consumer demand across all sectors. 

The first interaction of Deutsche’s suite of crypto services includes a custodial service for wealthy investors like “asset managers, wealth managers/family offices, corporates, and digital funds.”

The following stages involve building a trading platform to buy and sell crypto assets across brokerages. The bank also plans to provide “valuation services and fund administration, lending, staking, and voting. It will also provide an open-banking platform to allow onboarding of third-party providers” down the line. In an earlier report, the banking giant predicted the end of fiat currencies by 2030. 

Deutsche’s immediate competition in the banking world is Fidelity’s digital asset wing, which provides custodial services. Institutional services are provided by Coinshares, Coinbase Custody, Gemini, and others.

The report summarizes the leading efforts by a “broad cross-section of experts” promoting the crypto industry. It lists nine blockchains and six Layer-2 solutions as well as the upcoming plans for multiple other financial companies including PayPal.

Along with Deutsche Bank, PayPal has also shared their goal of increasing “the overall adoption of cryptocurrency” in payments. 

PayPal integrated Bitcoin purchases last year and now plans to fund merchant payments using crypto as well.

In the U.S., the OCC cleared the banks to offer Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Further, nearly half of the top 25 companies are now connected to the crypto industry in some way.

Disclosure: The author held Bitcoin at the time of press. 

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