institutional

Galaxy Digital Research Director Alex Thorn stated that over half of the BTC supply is located in addresses of unknown ownership. Despite the trend of institutionalization and centralized holdings in recent years, there is still a massive (possibly even the majority of) amount of Bitcoin being self-custodied by individuals.

Standard Chartered Bank announced that it has launched institutional custody services for Ripple's stablecoin RLUSD through its Dubai International Financial Centre branch, supporting the operation of this stablecoin on the XRP Ledger, allowing qualified institutional clients to use its digital asset custody infrastructure.Standard Chartered plans to extend the collateral mirroring model to institutional trading company LMAX Group, allowing clients to use RLUSD as trading collateral while the tokens remain held in the bank's custody. This model enables LMAX to confirm the value of qualified RLUSD holdings without requiring clients to transfer tokens, which Standard Chartered claims reduces transfer-related risks and helps institutions manage counterparty exposure.The issuer of RLUSD, Ripple, and LMAX Group announced a partnership in January 2026 to expand the institutional use of this stablecoin. Standard Chartered stated that the new collateral functionality still needs to meet conditions such as final documentation, testing, regulatory requirements, and internal approvals.

Coinbase Institutional stated that ETH rose by 71% in the third quarter, but on-chain indicators show that there are no obvious signs of overheating in its price trend.Data shows that the proportion of ETH supply in profit has moved out of the accumulation range, but it is still far below the warning zone, indicating that the current market has not reached the excessive rise state suggested by historical indicators.

TruGolf Holdings (TRUG), a publicly traded company on NASDAQ, announced that it has completed the acquisition of the Canadian asset tokenization company Polymath Research Inc. Polymath is a company focused on institutional-grade asset tokenization and is also the developer of the Layer 1 blockchain Polymesh, which is aimed at regulated assets. After the acquisition, Polymath will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of TruGolf, while TruGolf will continue to retain its original businesses such as golf simulators and the E6 platform, forming two business lines: golf technology and blockchain infrastructure.As of December 31, 2025, Polymath has issued tokenized assets worth over $132 million for more than 65 active issuers and has over 50 ecosystem partners. The two parties also plan to launch a device leasing tokenization and franchise rights fragmentation holding project in the first quarter of 2027. In addition, TruGolf received approximately $2.95 million in net proceeds from the exercise of B-round preferred stock warrants related to this transaction.

As the institutional market gradually develops towards the separation of custody and trading, Bitget is expanding its open custody and over-the-counter settlement infrastructure for institutional clients, providing more flexible asset custody, fund management, and trading access options.Currently, Bitget has partnered with institutions such as Copper ClearLoop, Cactus Custody Oasis, Fireblocks Off Exchange, OSL MirrorEX, Bitfire PrimeMirror, and Sygnum Protect to meet the differentiated needs of institutions in asset isolation, custody options, settlement efficiency, and liquidity access through diversified custody and settlement models.Bitget's CEO Gracy Chen stated that different types of institutions have varying needs for custody, settlement, and capital management. Bitget aims to allow institutions to choose solutions based on their operational models through open and compatible infrastructure, enhancing fund utilization efficiency and liquidity access capabilities while achieving asset risk isolation. This expansion is also an important part of Bitget's UEX strategy, with institutional services continuing to be a strategic focus to further enhance capital utilization efficiency and accelerate the integration of crypto assets with tokenized traditional financial infrastructure.

According to CoinDesk, Project Eleven, which focuses on defending against future quantum computing attacks, and the privacy-oriented proof-of-work blockchain Quantus plan to complete integration in the first quarter of 2027. This will connect Quantus to Project Eleven's institutional custody platform Strongpoint, allowing institutions to manage Quantus keys and approve transactions through hardware security modules, internal policies, and audit systems.The significance of this integration goes beyond a single chain. Networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum are unlikely to adopt the same post-quantum signature schemes or migration paths. Banks holding multiple assets may need to adapt to various new cryptographic forms simultaneously, without weakening control over transaction approval, signing, and auditing. Alex Pruden, co-founder and CEO of Project Eleven, stated that this transition could become a barrier for institutions adopting cryptocurrencies, as they have already prepared for post-quantum transitions outside of blockchain.Christopher Smith, co-founder and CEO of Quantus, believes that AI is accelerating everything, including quantum hardware and quantum software. The tail risk of sudden quantum attacks must be incorporated into all portfolio decisions, as it falls under fiduciary duty. The design of Strongpoint decouples the institutional control layer from the signature schemes used by the underlying blockchain. Even if different cryptography is adopted on-chain, custodians can still retain approval processes, hardware key storage, and audit trails. Quantus uses the post-quantum signature standard ML-DSA selected by the National Institute of Standards and Technology for key generation and transaction signing.

According to an official post from Chainlink, it has launched the institutional financing and collateral management solution Fulcrum, which separates financing agreement management from cash and collateral settlement networks, supports cross-chain repurchase (Repo) and 24/7 collateral movement, and will demonstrate with DTCC at Sibos 2026.Chainlink also stated that 40 new integrations were added in September, covering 24 users including Aave, Coinbase, Paxos, Monad, Tempo, and others.

According to The Block, Standard Chartered Bank's Singapore branch plans to provide custody services for specific crypto assets, stablecoins, and tokenized real-world assets to institutional investors.The bank stated that this service will expand its existing crypto asset custody business, which currently covers the UAE, Luxembourg, and Hong Kong.

According to The Block, Kraken's parent company Payward has partnered with Singapore Gulf Bank to provide 24/7 settlement services for institutional digital asset clients.Payward stated that it has connected to the bank's real-time multi-currency clearing network SGB Net. Initially, this settlement service will offer USD transaction settlements to select clients, with plans to expand to more currencies in the future.

Chainlink has launched a cross-chain institutional repurchase product called Fulcrum to support cross-chain financing in the institutional repurchase market.Chainlink has demonstrated this financing workflow in collaboration with DTCC at the Sibos conference, showcasing how Fulcrum operates in institutional repurchase scenarios, with DTCC serving as the U.S. securities depository and clearing agency. Currently, integration work with various financing venues for Fulcrum is still ongoing.

According to Gate's latest institutional weekly report, from September 21 to 27, the decline in oil prices and the easing of trade risks provided some support for U.S. stocks and crypto assets. However, the yield on the U.S. 10-year Treasury bond broke above 5%, and the high interest rate environment continues to put pressure on the valuations of risk assets. In terms of capital, the weekly net inflows for BTC and ETH ETFs were approximately $2.386 billion and $690 million, respectively, while the supply of stablecoins increased by about $1.59 billion, indicating a rebound in institutional capital and on-chain liquidity.The market trading structure remains differentiated. The weekly trading volume on Gate TradFi is about $100 billion, maintaining a high level overall; on-chain funds are further concentrated in structural opportunities such as USDC and SOL LST. In the derivatives sector, BTC rose 4.06% weekly, but the open interest across exchanges decreased by 12.81%, with funding rates turning negative temporarily, and options open interest significantly contracting, indicating signs of deleveraging in the market as prices rebound.Against the backdrop of continuous changes in capital flows and market structure, Gate institutions are continuously improving the multi-asset trading system, covering spot, contracts, stocks, ETFs, options, and other TradFi assets. They are also promoting API trading, cross-platform execution, and settlement collaboration based on infrastructures like OES and CrossEx, providing support for institutions to participate in cross-market trading and diversified asset allocation.

According to The Block, Polymarket has appointed former Goldman Sachs partner Lisa Mantil as Head of Institutional Growth.It is reported that Mantil will be responsible for products, infrastructure, and liquidity related work aimed at investment managers, banks, and corporate trading desks.

Verona announced the launch of verUSD on X, positioning it as the first stablecoin aimed at AI agents. The project claims that verUSD has secured over $100 million in institutional launch commitments.Participating institutions include Animoca Ventures, Figment Capital, Sfermion, Pentos Ventures, ArkStream, and others. Verona is a company providing on-chain payment and settlement infrastructure for AI agents, and verUSD is intended to serve as a stablecoin tool for value transfer and settlement between AI agents.

The lending agreement indicates that Spark has allocated $210 million in loans to institutions collateralized by Bitcoin, with the related Bitcoin held by the digital asset custodian Anchorage Digital. Institutions can borrow USDC while the pledged assets remain with a qualified custodian.Spark provides the loan funds, and Anchorage Digital manages the collateral through the Atlas platform. Atlas is its automated network that offers round-the-clock margin monitoring, settlement, and third-party services within a regulated custody framework.

BNB Chain announced the appointment of Thomas Chen as Chief Business Officer. This appointment will drive BNB Chain to further focus on institutional, capital, and chain listing market activities.Thomas has deep experience in traditional finance and digital assets, with 15 years of industry experience, including over 7 years focused on team building in the digital asset infrastructure sector, possessing extensive experience in capital markets, custody, trading, and business growth.After joining BNB Chain, he will focus on bringing institutions and capital on-chain, deepening liquidity, increasing trading volume, and enhancing the long-term value of the ecosystem.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Citigroup has reached a partnership with Coinbase, allowing Citigroup's institutional clients (including large multinational corporations) to accept customer stablecoin payments through Citigroup's merchant acquiring services. Coinbase will provide the stablecoin payment channel and underlying blockchain technology, automatically converting stablecoins into fiat currency, with Citigroup acting as the custodian bank to complete the funds settlement.At the same time, Coinbase's payment clients can leverage Citigroup's banking capabilities to receive, hold, and make payments using tools similar to bank accounts. The cash received will automatically be converted into stablecoins and stored in Coinbase, currently earning an annualized reward of 3.75% in interest-like benefits.

Galaxy Digital, a Nasdaq-listed digital asset company, has incorporated $100 million in Sky Protocol interest-bearing savings tokens sUSDS into its corporate treasury and included them in the collateral range for institutional business facing over 1,600 counterparties. Galaxy also purchased an undisclosed amount of SKY.Galaxy clients can use sUSDS as collateral for loans and continue to earn Sky Savings Rate yields during the loan term. The average loan size in Galaxy's institutional lending business is approximately $1.4 billion; the Sky ecosystem's Prime Agent Grove had previously provided a $500 million warehouse loan limit to it.

The cryptocurrency exchange Bitget has migrated institutional client collateral to the over-the-counter custody solution Sygnum Protect of the Swiss crypto bank Sygnum. Client collateral is stored in Sygnum's segregated accounts and is simultaneously mapped back to Bitget for trading, reducing counterparty risk.Sygnum is a digital asset bank holding a Swiss FINMA banking license, and its Sygnum Protect service allows clients to trade on mainstream crypto exchanges while storing collateral off-chain in a bankruptcy-remote manner, supporting the selection of stable, yield-generating collateral. Bitget is the fourth trading platform to access Sygnum Protect, following Binance, Deribit, and Bybit.

According to The Block, the Solana Foundation announced the appointment of Rachel Conlan as Chief Strategy Officer and Jamal Raees as General Manager of Payment Business to expand institutional adoption and payment operations. Conlan previously worked at Binance for three years and held senior management positions at companies such as OKX; Raees comes from Polygon Labs and will be responsible for collaborating with payment companies, enterprises, and ecosystem partners to promote Solana as a global payment infrastructure.The Solana Foundation stated that this year, Solana's stablecoin trading volume has exceeded $50 trillion, the on-chain real-world assets (RWA) scale has surpassed $4.5 billion, and the supply of tokenized stocks has exceeded $620 million.