Bank of New York Mellon, one of the world’s biggest custody banks, has invested in cryptocurrency custodian Fireblocks, a strategic investment that is part of a $133 million Series C venture capital fundraise spearheaded by Coatue, Ribbit, and Stripes.
Fireblocks is a platform that enables banks and other financial institutions to store, transfer and issue digital assets, as the prominent custodian bank gives more focus on cryptocurrency.
The latest round gives the New York City-based crypto custodian Fireblocks a market value of almost $1 billion, a person with knowledge of the matter disclosed.
Major investors onboard
The completion of the round brings Fireblock’s total amount of venture capital raised to nearly $180 million. Existing investors including Galaxy Digital, Paradigm, and Swisscom Ventures, also took part in the fundraiser.
“Engineering is going to be a major part of our spend,” Forbes quoted Fireblocks chief executive officer and co-founder Michael Shaulov as saying.
Fireblocks has focused on onboarding new clients and has secured a $400 billion cryptocurrency transfer for roughly 230 clients, including hedge funds, fintech companies, virtual exchanges, and banks in the last few months.
The rush for bitcoin investment
The capital infusion by BNY Mellon comes after the bank joined the rush in February by major financial services companies to invest in virtual currencies like bitcoin (BTC), saying it had created a new division to help clients hold, move and issue crypto.
According to Shaulov, Fireblocks closely advises 50% of the 70 leading financial institutions in the world and is developing pilot products with five multinational banks. Assets under management (AUM) lie in the $10-20 billion range, the CEO said.
“Developing products to bridge digital and traditional assets is foundational to the future of custody,” Benzinga quoted Roman Regelman as saying. Regelman is CEO of asset servicing and director of digital at BNY Mellon.
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