[2018-12-02]Crypto Custody? State Street Is Waiting on a Client Shift, Exec Says

[tyz]

State Street, one the largest institutional custodians on the planet, said there is no sense of urgency – at the moment, at least – from clients for the firm to move into safeguarding crypto assets. Speaking at the American Banker BlockFS conference in New York on Thursday, Jay Biancamano, State Street’s managing director for digital product development and innovation, acknowledged there is “a high level of interest”, however.
https://www.coindesk.com/crypto-custody-state-street-is-waiting-on-a-client-shift-exec-says

[KryptoKai]

They are looking for something safe as the stock market is not looking particularly good right now. Perhaps this new temporary halt between the US and China for their trade war will help the markets to recover, and crypto with it

[buwaytress]

Been one of my first observations when talking about "institutional" opinion, and this also from personale experience listening to different types of people talk about Bitcoin. The suits and ties are no doubt interested in Bitcoin, have been for a while, but never because of the new idea of how money would be viewed - that's been around for years. Their interest and awareness only piqued by price speculation, nothing more.

Controlling their own money? Being responsible for signing transactions? Keeping their wallet safe? God forbid. They're in love with the system, it's how they make their wealth. They want to trust someone else with their money. They want a custodian. Preferably, someone to tell them they have Bitcoin instead of storing their own access. An email and password to view some arbitrary balance, because that's what they're comfortable with.

[Betwrong]

Been one of my first observations when talking about "institutional" opinion, and this also from personale experience listening to different types of people talk about Bitcoin. The suits and ties are no doubt interested in Bitcoin, have been for a while, but never because of the new idea of how money would be viewed - that's been around for years. Their interest and awareness only piqued by price speculation, nothing more.

Controlling their own money? Being responsible for signing transactions? Keeping their wallet safe? God forbid. They're in love with the system, it's how they make their wealth. They want to trust someone else with their money. They want a custodian. Preferably, someone to tell them they have Bitcoin instead of storing their own access. An email and password to view some arbitrary balance, because that's what they're comfortable with.

You have a point, but I wouldn't judge those people who prefer someone else was doing the job for them. There are two options for the people in question. It's either the State Street will be safeguarding crypto assets for them, or they will not be using crypto assets because the things you've mentioned sound incomprehensible and scary to them. Overall I think that the willingness of the State Street to meet their customers demand in that regard is a good sign.

[squatter]

Controlling their own money? Being responsible for signing transactions? Keeping their wallet safe? God forbid. They're in love with the system, it's how they make their wealth. They want to trust someone else with their money. They want a custodian. Preferably, someone to tell them they have Bitcoin instead of storing their own access. An email and password to view some arbitrary balance, because that's what they're comfortable with.

I suppose we should have seen this coming. Aside from the physical gold bugs, that's what people trust -- numbers on a screen at their bank or broker's website. In the mass adoption scenario, I wonder what proportion of "holders" will actually hold the keys to their coins. It's a tad depressing to think about.

State Street, one the largest institutional custodians on the planet, said there is no sense of urgency – at the moment, at least – from clients for the firm to move into safeguarding crypto assets. Speaking at the American Banker BlockFS conference in New York on Thursday, Jay Biancamano, State Street’s managing director for digital product development and innovation, acknowledged there is “a high level of interest”, however.

That's a big contrast from what BlackRock's CEO said over the summer. He said their clients have zero interest...

[magneto]

State Street, one the largest institutional custodians on the planet, said there is no sense of urgency – at the moment, at least – from clients for the firm to move into safeguarding crypto assets. Speaking at the American Banker BlockFS conference in New York on Thursday, Jay Biancamano, State Street’s managing director for digital product development and innovation, acknowledged there is “a high level of interest”, however.
https://www.coindesk.com/crypto-custody-state-street-is-waiting-on-a-client-shift-exec-says

I think that for individuals that are holding bitcoin, custodial services simply don't make any sense. Even for long term institutional investors, it is much better to hold the private key to the bitcoins instead of trusting someone to safeguard it.

Obviously, though, they are targeting the institutional investors who need to trade bitcoin and derivatives on the short term.

In that case, I don't really see any reason for there to be any demand yet, given that the bear market is still going and that institutions are only looking into bitcoin and taking it as a serious investment possibility over the last year or so. In the future, there could definitely be more demand for these services.