BNY Mellon adds to its crypto team amid collapses, regulatory crackdowns

Crypto companies are collapsing, and U.S. regulators are on the hunt for rule-breakers. Amid it all, BNY Mellon has been busy building its digital assets division and adding talent from across the crypto ecosystem. 

Earlier today, America’s oldest bank said it had appointed former Zodia Custody Chief Executive Officer Maxime de Guillebon as head of digital asset product. The Standard Chartered veteran spent 17 years working at the investment bank’s various units. 

“Max brings a depth of industry experience creating and running digital asset businesses,” Caroline Butler, CEO of custody and digital assets at BNY, said in a LinkedIn post. “His global experience managing roles across both traditional and digital firms uniquely positions him to support our company’s ongoing efforts to shape the future of digital finance.”

The bank, which announced plans to launch a crypto custody product in November, the same month FTX collapsed, also added former BlockFi employee Rachel Willis as chief of staff. Willis spent the past year and a half at the now-bankrupt crypto lender, where she was a senior manager on the PR and communications team. 

Hard to ignore

The bank’s CEO, Robin Vince, said digital assets are the bank’s “longest-term play” during January’s fourth-quarter earnings call. 

Vince compared ignoring the digital asset space to “being the custodian of 50 years ago and sticking with paper and not adopting a computer… That’s not going to be us.”

BNY received approval from New York’s financial regulator in November to start receiving select customers’ bitcoin and ether deposits, bringing the world’s largest custody bank — with over $46 trillion in assets under custody — into the crypto space. 

BNY Mellon has two unique characteristics when it comes to launching crypto services, Caroline Butler, CEO of custody services at the bank, told The Block at the time. “We are ready to support other assets and are fully interoperable with traditional space, being a bridge between traditional and the digital world is something institutional clients value,” Butler said. 

Disclaimer: The former CEO and majority shareholder of The Block has disclosed a series of loans from former FTX and Alameda founder Sam Bankman-Fried.

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