On Thursday, February 2nd, BNY Mellon, America’s oldest continuously running bank, announced the naming of its first digital assets CEO. Caroline Butler has been with the bank since 2020 and has previously served as CEO of Custody Services.

BNY Mellon Names Digital Assets CEO

This Thursday, the custody giant BNY Mellon announced the appointment of Caroline Butler as its Digital Assets CEO. Butler joined the bank in 2020 and has most recently served as the CEO of Custody Services. In that role, “she spearheaded the development of BNY Mellon’s integrated digital custody and administration platform for traditional and digital assets”.

The bank’s CEO of Securities Services and Digital, Roman Regelman, expressed his satisfaction with the naming of Butler to the role in the wake of evolving institutional interest in cryptocurrencies. He also added that BNY Mellon is committed to becoming “a trusted provider of services to the broader financial ecosystem” with regard to digital assets.

The appointment is in line with the policy detailed in January’s earnings call. At the time, Robin Vince, BNY Mellon’s CEO, called digital assets the bank’s “longest-term play”. Furthermore, he stated the company isn’t necessarily interested in cryptocurrencies themselves, but rather in “the broader opportunity that exists across digital assets and distributed ledger technology.”

Legacy Companies Increasingly Interested in Crypto

While some major financial institutions have a long history with digital assets, recently many more have expressed an interest in cryptocurrencies. While Fidelity has been involved with Bitcoin in some capacity since at least 2014, it significantly expanded its cryptocurrency offering in 2022.

The investment giant added Bitcoin to its 401(k) offering already in April of 2022. More recently, in September it announced the plan to provide exposure to the world’s largest cryptocurrency to its 34 million customers, and it started rolling out the service by early November.

Major corporations outside the strictly financial sector have also been taking increased notice of digital assets. Nike struck gold last summer with its NFT marketplace which generated $185 million in revenue by late August. This year also looks like it will see some important additions as Amazon is reportedly working on an NFT-based Web3 initiative.

Regulators and legislators have also been watching crypto adoption with an increasingly keen—and often, increasingly hostile—eye. For example, a group of US Senators urged Fidelity to discontinue its BTC 401(K)s on no fewer than three occasions in 2022. Furthermore, the White House published a digital asset roadmap in January in which it commends the aggressive actions taken by regulators and calls on Congress to do more when it comes to digital assets.

This article originally appeared on The Tokenist

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