Crypto custody company BitGo goes public on the New York Stock Exchange

BitGo, a digital asset infrastructure and crypto custody company, debuted on the New York Stock Exchange with a $2.59 billion valuation in January after securing an unconditional national trust charter in December. The double milestone gave the company strong tailwinds as traditional financial institutions show steadily increasing interest in digital assets, according to Frank Wang, BitGo's managing director and head of North America fintech sales, speaking at the Money20/20 conference in Las Vegas.

Wang said that for highly conservative and bureaucratic banks, satisfying risk compliance is essential before touching digital assets. Banks are exploring stablecoins and tokenized deposits so they are not left behind by peer banks, though building the internal infrastructure is expensive. BitGo offers banks two options: using BitGo software to manage digital asset wallets themselves, or having BitGo Bank & Trust handle the custody directly.

Wang called the trust option an easy button for a community, midsize, or regional bank to touch digital assets. Several banks are already launching stablecoins, including U.S. Bank debuting its USBDC in September and SoFi launching SoFiUSD in December, while Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Citi partner on a new stablecoin set for next year.

Meanwhile, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued its final rule to implement the Genius Act, creating a regulatory framework for stablecoins that takes effect Jan. 18. Wang noted that traditional banks are not going away, but are simply becoming better banks by using blockchain.

The national trust charter also enables BitGo to operate across more states without expensive state-by-state money transmitter licenses. With the boost from its charter and public offering, BitGo is increasing manpower and using AI as a force multiplier, helping engineers put out code three times as fast.