Bitcoin adoption has been expressed in various ways since its creation, and now within 60% of the major US banking institutions. This favorable openness was confirmed by the founder of Coinbase, following his appearance at the Davos Forum.
US banks adopt Bitcoin
Since the historic approval in January 2024 of its spot ETFs on the US stock market, Bitcoin has triggered an unprecedented institutional shift that is now widely established within traditional finance. This has motivated some opponents to reconsider their ambitions in relation to this iconic cryptocurrency.
This situation is particularly evident in the banking sector, where many American leaders—and more specifically their executives—have historically been (very) reluctant to open up to this field. But that was without counting on their customers’ unwavering motivation to access these promising crypto-assets.
Nevertheless, it took the promise of favorable crypto legislation from the Trump administration to truly open the floodgates for Bitcoin’s adoption by banks. According to the latest estimate from the River analysis organization, published on the X network, this now involves 60% of the largest US banks.
Among the current top 10 largest US banks, seven already offer—or have announced plans to offer—Bitcoin-related products, most of which are exclusively for their wealthiest clients (High Net Worth—HNW). Only 10 of the 25 players in the sector mentioned offer nothing at all at the moment, representing a favorable adoption factor of 60%.
As for the “Big Four” ranking, only Bank of America remains closed to the moment, while global leader JPMorgan has been considering offering spot and crypto derivatives trading to its institutional clients since last December.
“Most are very favorable to crypto and see it as an opportunity.”
This observation was also made by Brian Armstrong, founder of the cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase, during his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, from January 19 to 23.
Indeed, this iconic player in the crypto ecosystem took the opportunity to gauge the opinion of some of the leaders of the largest US banks on their openness to Bitcoin, but also to the cryptocurrency market as a whole.
Most are actually very supportive of crypto and see it as an opportunity. Some are not quite there yet, but one of the CEOs of a top 10 global bank told me that crypto was their number one priority and that they saw it as an existential issue.
Brian Armstrong
The latest entrant in this race is none other than the giant UBS (#22 in this ranking), with an announcement made official yesterday about its intention to offer Bitcoin and Ether to its wealthy clients.
The question is no longer if, but when the most resistant will follow suit…
