Fintech veteran Wojciech Kaszycki has recognized three assessments for actual financial institution adoption of Bitcoin: shopper custody balances, credit-funded spot trades and its use as mortgage collateral, following Normal Chartered’s launch of deliverable $BTC and $ETH buying and selling for eligible UAE establishments.
Normal Chartered has put Bitcoin buying and selling on current financial institution rails
Normal Chartered mentioned on Sept. 3 that eligible establishments can commerce deliverable Bitcoin and Ether via its Dubai Worldwide Monetary Centre department, making it the primary international systemically vital financial institution to supply institutional digital asset spot buying and selling within the UAE.
The service helps $BTC/USD and $ETH/USD trades via the financial institution’s current digital channels, together with interfaces already used for overseas alternate. Shoppers can select the place their property settle, both utilizing Normal Chartered’s UAE custody platform or one other custodian.
As crypto.information beforehand reported, the financial institution launched the UAE service greater than a yr after launching the identical buying and selling mannequin via its UK department in July 2025. Normal Chartered had already begun providing regulated digital asset custody within the UAE in September 2024, initially supporting Bitcoin and Ether with Brevan Howard Digital as its first shopper.
Wojciech Kaszycki, founder and chairman of Mobilum and a technique advisor to Warsaw-listed BTCS S.A., instructed crypto.information that inserting digital property on a financial institution’s overseas alternate interface solely removes one small impediment for establishments.
In response to Kaszycki, treasury groups care extra in regards to the identification of their counterparty, inside threat approval, custody requirements, auditor acceptance, and the way in which every commerce enters the corporate’s accounting system.
“No one on a treasury group ever says: ‘I’d purchase bitcoin if solely it regarded like my EUR/USD ticket.”
A significant system, in his view, would join Bitcoin trades to the credit score traces, limits, confirmations, and back-office processes that establishments already use for currencies. Such integration would let a treasury division deal with crypto as a daily balance-sheet merchandise as an alternative of working it as a separate venture.
“If it’s only a new ticker within the GUI and the whole lot behind it’s guide, it’s a demo,” Kaszycki mentioned.
Drawing on his work with a listed Bitcoin treasury firm and a Dubai household workplace, he added that buying and selling towards a financial institution credit score line with out sending funds to a venue prematurely would make it simpler to safe board approval.
Bitcoin collateral would provide a clearer adoption take a look at
Spot quantity supplies a poor measure of institutional adoption as a result of buying and selling exercise can rise with out exhibiting whether or not firms or funds intend to carry digital property, in keeping with Kaszycki.
He as an alternative pointed to custody balances held at banks for shoppers outdoors the crypto business. Such balances would present that standard firms, funds, and different establishments have chosen to carry Bitcoin via regulated banking relationships slightly than merely commerce it.
His second indicator is financial institution credit score for spot purchases. Eradicating the necessity to prefund a commerce would point out {that a} financial institution’s threat division has assessed the asset, set publicity limits, and authorized it inside the establishment’s credit score framework.
Bitcoin coming into financial institution lending books would supply the strongest sign, he mentioned, particularly if lenders disclose the haircuts utilized to the collateral. A haircut reduces the worth {that a} financial institution assigns to pledged property when calculating how a lot it’ll lend.
“When a financial institution has to cost it, custody it, and liquidate it if wanted, that’s adoption. All the things else is advertising,” Kaszycki mentioned.
Banks in the US have already began shifting on this course. An August report on JPMorgan collateral cited Bitcoin haircuts of 30% to 50%, which means $1 million in pledged $BTC may assist between $500,000 and $700,000 in mortgage proceeds, relying on the borrower and mortgage phrases.
In response to the report, accepting Bitcoin as collateral additionally creates liquidation threat as a result of a steep worth decline may set off margin calls and compelled gross sales. Lenders due to this fact want guidelines for valuation, custody, collateral monitoring and liquidation earlier than inserting $BTC alongside property resembling bonds, equities or gold.
Kaszycki additionally pointed to listed firms whose auditors approve Bitcoin holdings on their steadiness sheets. BTCS holds Bitcoin as a treasury asset on the Warsaw Inventory Change, and he mentioned the audit course of requires extra work than finishing the commerce itself.
Separate custody leaves a settlement downside
Permitting shoppers to make use of their most well-liked custodian provides flexibility, however Kaszycki mentioned splitting execution and custody creates a well-recognized settlement threat. One social gathering might have to switch first, prefund the transaction, or use an escrow supplier trusted by each side.
Deliverable spot buying and selling requires the client to obtain the underlying Bitcoin or Ether slightly than a cash-settled contract linked to its worth. When the digital asset and money journey via separate programs, completion of 1 leg can happen earlier than the opposite.
Kaszycki in contrast the setup with overseas alternate settlement in 2005. In his evaluation, Bitcoin can attain closing settlement in below an hour at any time, whereas the greenback switch might stay tied to SWIFT processing, financial institution opening hours, and fee cutoffs.
“The sluggish leg is fiat,” he mentioned.
Tokenized financial institution deposits or regulated stablecoins may place the money and asset legs on suitable programs, permitting payment-versus-payment settlement through which each transfers full collectively, in keeping with Kaszycki. Custodians would additionally want conditional launch capabilities as an alternative of ready to substantiate receipt of a wire earlier than releasing the crypto.
For transactions between a number of banks, he mentioned a netting community modeled on CLS may cut back the gross quantities that counterparties alternate bilaterally. With out such a system, banks should depend on credit score traces, authorized pockets lists, settlement home windows, and employees monitoring blockchain explorers.
Normal Chartered has already examined methods to separate alternate exercise from asset storage. Underneath a collateral-mirroring association launched by OKX in April 2025, establishments can maintain eligible property with the financial institution whereas their worth seems in an alternate buying and selling account. The framework later added BlackRock’s BUIDL tokenized U.S. Treasury fund as eligible collateral in April 2026.
Banks may win regulated flows whereas exchanges retain liquidity
Giant banks can seize extra institutional crypto buying and selling as a result of company treasuries, funding funds, insurers and Gulf sovereign establishments typically favor counterparties that already assist their compliance and credit score necessities, Kaszycki mentioned.
Shoppers might settle for the next unfold in return for entry to a financial institution’s steadiness sheet, documentation, and established relationship. Kaszycki expects banks to supply costs from crypto-native markets earlier than including a ramification for institutional prospects.
Crypto exchanges would retain a number of benefits below such a construction. Their markets function constantly, together with weekends, whereas banks stay organized round enterprise hours and current staffing fashions. Native venues additionally provide extra property and deeper derivatives markets, the place a lot of crypto worth discovery nonetheless happens.
“At BTCS, we already do most of our dimension OTC with market makers slightly than on order books, precisely for settlement flexibility,” he mentioned. “Banks are simply the following step in that very same logic.”
U.S. guidelines now give nationwide banks room to take part in a number of components of the method. A December 2025 report on OCC steering defined that nationwide banks might conduct matched crypto transactions as riskless principals, supplied they offset the publicity and adjust to buying and selling, anti-money laundering and third-party threat controls.
Earlier OCC steering additionally confirmed that nationwide banks can present crypto custody and execution or outsource these capabilities to certified suppliers. Banks stay chargeable for managing the dangers created by sub-custodians and different outdoors companies.
An August assessment of the U.S. custody market discovered that BNY, State Road, Normal Chartered, U.S. Financial institution, and Citi had launched or have been making ready direct digital asset custody providers. The report linked elevated financial institution participation to the SEC’s January 2025 withdrawal of Workers Accounting Bulletin 121 and OCC letters confirming banks’ custody authority.
Kaszycki mentioned banks extending spot credit score would present that their threat groups had constructed formal fashions for Bitcoin, whereas disclosed collateral haircuts would reveal how lenders worth its volatility. On the company facet, he would depend listed firms whose auditors approve Bitcoin holdings, a course of BTCS has already accomplished for its Warsaw-listed treasury.
