Report: 55 of the top 100 banks by assets under management have invested in crypto or a blockchain company; Barclays and Citigroup are the most active investors (Report Barclays Citigroupavannomayocointelegraph)

Report Barclays Citigroupavannomayocointelegraph: During a time of unprecedented volatility in traditional marketplaces, a new investment trend has emerged: crypto. When the price of bitcoin has been increasing exponentially and new cryptocurrencies are cropping up by the day, it’s clear that cryptocurrency is quickly becoming an important topic to know about. This article highlights 55 of the top 100 banks by assets under management that have invested in crypto or a blockchain company; Barclays and Citigroup are the most active investors. The article also mentions that these investments can help hedge against volatility in traditional markets.

While cryptocurrencies are becoming more and more mainstream, the methods of investment are still limited. You can buy cryptocurrency on an exchange, but you cannot hold it there. At most exchanges, cryptocurrency can be held in online wallets for a short period of time before being withdrawn to a personal digital wallet. Some banks have been willing to act as custodians of crypto assets and to provide accounts denominated in cryptocurrencies; however, most banks have still not entered this market yet. Banks that have been most active in entering this market have been Barclays and Citigroup.

Figure 1: The top 100 banks by assets under management (in billions)

I did some digging to find out which banks had the highest levels of crypto exposure, and found that there were two groups who had cryptocurrency exposure. The first were banks that are regulated in the US; the second, regulated by UK and EU laws, would not be subject to US regulations. The top banks by assets under management (as of June 30, 2017) were Barclays and Citigroup.

Bank Name Total Assets Under Management % of Assets Under Management* % of total AUM in Companies with Crypto & Blockchain Investments Citigroup $859.7 billion 2.65% 2.45% Barclays $868.3 billion 3.84% 1.89% BNP Paribas $831.5 billion 5.18% 0.73% Société Générale $785 billion 4.68% 0.39% Wells Fargo $1.4 trillion 2.27% 2.27% Credit Agricole $419 billion 4.64% 0.39% Royal Bank of Canada $735 billion 5.03% 1.18% JP Morgan Chase $2 trillion 3.06% 1.12% UBS Group $1,349 billion 4.55%-5.5 % 0 0 Deutsche Bank Group $1,049 billion 5%-10 % <0 .01% Morgan Stanley $916.5 billion 9.77% <0 .01% Bank of America $1.3 trillion 6.61% 1.12% Bank of Montreal $650 billion 7.71% 0.39% Goldman Sachs $1,041 billion 4%-6% <0 .01% HSBC Holdings $1,185 billion 2%-4 % <0 .01:1 * % of Total Assets Under Management are calculated as AUM divided by Total Assets Under Management for Banking & Insurance Companies (June 30, 2017). Total Assets Under Management are obtained from World Bank. AUM in Companies with Crypto & Blockchain Investments got from our previous article ‘Where is Cryptocurrency exposure the Largest in Banking?’.