Circle Unveils BNY Mellon as Custodian for USDC Reserves

Circle announced the selection of BNY Mellon, one of the oldest U.S. banks and one of the first to embrace custody of digital assets, as the principal custodian for USD Coin (USDC) reserves.

BNY Mellon to Custody USDC Stablecoin Assets

Circle, the operator of the USD Coin (USDC), revealed on Thursday that it had chosen BNY Mellon as the custodian of its USDC assets.

Established in 1784, BNY Mellon is one of the oldest banks in the U.S., with an estimated $46.7 trillion in assets under administration or custody around the world today. It acts as a single point of contact for clients seeking investment management services.

BNY Mellon also stated that as part of the new collaboration, it would investigate the prospect of employing digital currencies for settlement reasons. Roman Regelman, head of digital and CEO of asset servicing at BNY Mellon, said:

“We are at a point in the evolution of our industry where the digitization of assets presents new and exciting opportunities to a broad range of market participants. As a custodian for USDC reserves, our role supports the broader marketplace and brings value to clients, founded on our role at the intersection of trust and innovation.”

Meanwhile, Jeremy Allaire, co-founder and CEO at Circle added:

“As we continue to see exponential growth in USDC, the opportunity to work with BNY Mellon is one way we build bridges between traditional financial services and emerging digital asset markets without sacrificing trust.”

Circle Continues to Push DeFi

Circle continues to expand the USDC stablecoin’s integration across many blockchain networks resulting in an upsurge in DeFi adoption.

Circle introduced its decentralized finance (DeFi) application programming interface last June in an effort to lower the barrier to entry for enterprises into the complex DeFi ecosystem.

Circle’s DeFi API enabled businesses to automate their USDC flows into automated market makers and lending protocols. Through the system, the company was able to earn interest and governance tokens in a secure and seamless manner while also offering the same service to their clients without having to construct their own DeFi infrastructure from the ground up.

On Dec 14, 2021, Circle announced the integration of its USDC stablecoin on the Avalanche blockchain network. The integration permitted customers to send and receive payments, deposit, withdraw, and also settle transactions with USDC on Avalanche.

Commenting on their development, Circle’s co-founder and CEO, Jeremy Allaire, said.

“Support for USDC on Avalanche comes at an exciting and pivotal moment for the growing, multi-billion dollar DeFi market. With USDC as the leading dollar digital currency for the decentralized economy, this integration will be instrumental for developers and communities looking to participate in one of the fastest, organically growing ecosystems in crypto.”

In October last year, the dollar-pegged stablecoin was previously integrated on the Hedera Hashgraph network. Additionally, Circle has deployed USDC on a variety of other blockchains, including Solana, Ethereum, Tron, Algorand, and Stellar.

Apart from blockchain networks, Circle has also partnered with global payment giant Mastercard to facilitate crypto conversion via USDC.