Majority of America’s top 25 banks now signal crypto plans
Over half of the 25 largest US banks are now weighing or rolling out crypto-related products.
An Aug. 8 status chart shared by River that tracks the giants across two lanes, custody and trading.
The snapshot shows multiple firms moving from “not yet” to “exploring,” “announced,” or restricted access for high-net-worth clients, indicating that digital asset offerings are steadily entering mainstream wealth and capital-markets pipelines.
Concrete moves since early 2024 help explain the shift. Morgan Stanley considered letting its 15,000 brokers recommend spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to clients, working on guardrails for suitability and allocations, a sign of expanding distribution beyond unsolicited orders.
More recently, Charles Schwab’s chief executive said that the brokerage plans to add Bitcoin and Ethereum trading for customers, citing strong demand to view all holdings on a single platform.
PNC went further on the banking side, selecting Coinbase so that wealth and asset management customers can trade crypto directly through their PNC accounts rather than a separate venue.
Custody and tokenization are advancing in parallel. State Street signaled plans to launch a stablecoin and tokenized deposits to improve settlement, followed by efforts to tokenize bonds and money market shares.
BNY Mellon has been surfacing repeatedly in filings and product builds, including administrator and cash-custodian roles in ETF documents. Additionally, the bank appeared as custodian for reserves tied to Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin more recently.
Citi has explored Solana for next-generation financial services and tokenization pilots, and reportedly considered custody services in early 2025.
JPMorgan is on a spree of crypto-related projects in 2025. In June, the bank initiated a pilot project for a tokenized deposit token issued on Base, intending to facilitate instant dollar transfers.
Furthermore, the bank’s CEO Jamie Dimon revealed they will test stablecoin services along with the tokenized deposit token pilot. Notably, Dimon did not take back his criticism of crypto.
Last week, JPMorgan allowed its customers to access Coinbase to make direct crypto purchases without leaving their dashboard.
Taken together, these developments align with River’s chart, indicating that many top banks are not opening the floodgates. Still, they are preparing channels, such as ETF access, restricted trading for wealth clients, third-party integrations, custody mandates, and tokenization pilots.
Access remains uneven and often limited to high-net-worth or advisory clients, yet the direction of travel is clear.
The largest US banks are shifting their focus from monitoring crypto to operational planning and selective rollouts, with recent initiatives serving as proof points that a broader product set is coming into focus.
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