BNY Mellon Names Digital Assets CEO

BNY Mellon seeks to “accelerate” its efforts in the sector after launching a digital custody and administration platform in October

article-image

rafapress/Shutterstock.com modified by Blockworks

share

The world’s largest custodian bank has named a leader for its digital assets division as it seeks to accelerate initiatives in the segment despite the ongoing crypto winter. 

BNY Mellon named Caroline Butler as its CEO of digital assets Thursday. The post is a newly created role for the bank. 

BNY Mellon's CEO of Digital Assets Caroline Butler
BNY Mellon’s CEO of Digital Assets Caroline Butler | BNY Mellon

Roman Regelman, CEO of BNY Mellon’s securities services and digital, said in a statement that Butler would lead their enterprise-wide initiatives as the company accelerates its efforts around digital assets and other emerging technologies.

“As institutional adoption of digital assets continues to evolve, we are committed to being a trusted provider of services to the broader financial ecosystem,” Regelman added.

A spokesperson declined to comment further.

Butler, who joined the company in 2020, was previously CEO of the bank’s custody services. In that role, she led development of BNY Mellon’s digital custody and administration platform for traditional and digital assets.

That platform went live in the US for select institutional clients in October.

BNY Mellon had $44.3 trillion in assets under custody or administration, as well as $1.8 trillion in assets under management, as of Dec. 31. 

Butler said in an October statement that as the world’s largest custodian, BNY Mellon is the “natural provider” to create a safe custody platform in the space for institutional clients.

A research report by the bank published that month found 70% of surveyed institutional investors would increase digital asset activity “if services like custody and execution are available from recognized, trusted institutions.” 

Ed Groshans, a senior research and policy analyst at Compass Point Research & Trading, told Blockworks last month, BNY Mellon could be well-positioned to be a leader in the space after events such as the crash of FTX shook the industry. 

“They can really flesh out their business model over the next several months to several years to put themselves as a linchpin of trust in the crypto space from a custody perspective,” he said.


Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.

Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter.

Get alpha directly in your inbox with the 0xResearch newsletter — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.

The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

Tags

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 18 - 20, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Unlocked by Template.png

Research

RTK networks are critical to enabling a world of ubiquitous autonomous drones, vehicles, and industrial robots. We believe the GEOD token enables both a cost and product advantage for the GEODNET RTK network, which will allow it to out-compete multi-billion dollar incumbents Trimble and Hexagon.

article-image

Senator Cynthia Lummis hopes a US strategic bitcoin reserve can be teed up for “adoption in 2025”

article-image

As EIP-4844 “blobs” transform the economics of Ethereum layer-2s, a growing debate pits long-term scalability against immediate ETH value

article-image

Prosecutors argued that FTX co-founder Gary Wang cooperated in their case against former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried

article-image

The two largest crypto exchanges respectively run the second- and sixth-largest Solana validators

article-image

MicroStrategy’s bitcoin buying has exploded — it now holds 1.7% of the asset’s circulating supply

article-image

The MiCA era will reward the prepared and punish the rest