Earlier we discussed about the phenomenon of the most active crypto sector — memcoins. We summarized with examples that in general, the blockchain-based gambling sector is growing very aggressively and, despite some reputational dubiousness, is quite successful.
Now it’s time to highlight the fastest growing crypto sectors in the field of large and legitimate businesses. What are publicly traded companies in 2024 choosing to include in the crypto?
The Bank of New York Mellon, with $50 trillion in assets under its management, plans to enter the crypto custodial services market. More specifically, the services will be for Bitcoin and Ethereum-based spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
Bloomberg analysts note that such a move will jeopardize the dominant position of the Coinbase exchange, which acts as a custodian of most of these products in the U.S. market. This part of the business generates for the exchange a significant portion of operating profits, so the arrival of new major players is always a worrying signal.
The IT director of another crypto custodian Bitwise recently assured that he cannot name the names of his clients, but «the most influential people in finance are investing in cryptocurrencies». In particular, he clarified that two years ago only 10-20% of people were storing crypto assets, in 2024 this figure has increased to more than 70%. From this, it is clear that the custodian business is becoming highly sought after and promising.
The second important «entry point» into crypto for businesses is RWAs. Just recently we wrote about examples of family offices and SWIFT.
Today we wanted to give another fresh example of a major player entering this industry. So Visa has created a new platform that will help banks test tokenized assets and smart contracts — it plans to launch the first pilot project on the Ethereum blockchain in 2025.