In one of its biggest wins to date, Zodia Custody announced it landed Marathon Digital as a digital asset custody client. Marathon is the largest listed Bitcoin miner by market capitalization ($5.2 billion). The custody firm was founded by Standard Chartered’s SC Ventures and Northern Trust, with SBI joining as a significant backer.
One argument for incumbents getting involved in digital asset custody is that they have way more experience than crypto startups and have more on the line in terms of reputation. For example, Northern Trust is one of the world’s largest global custodians, with $16.5 trillion in assets under custody.
However, incumbents have barely made inroads into crypto custody until recently. In the United States, that’s a lot to do with the SEC’s accounting rule, SAB 121, which renders custody non-viable for banks. Hence, no banks are looking after the crypto that underpins the massive Bitcoin ETFs in the United States. Zodia Custody will provide services outside of the United States only.
“The addition of Zodia Custody demonstrates our continued commitment to the secure management and diversification of our Bitcoin holdings – especially as we continue to grow internationally and expand into new territories,” said Salman Khan, Marathon’s Chief Financial Officer. “Zodia Custody’s compliance and reputation in the market as a leading institutional digital asset custody provider make valuable addition to our list of diversified custodians.”
Earlier this month Zodia Custody announced it was one of the crypto custody providers for Deutsche Bank’s asset manager DWS crypto exchange-traded product (ETPs). In that case, Zodia is a custodian alongside Coinbase.
