NYDFS-licensed Standard Custody brings Solana staking to institutions

In addition to Bitcoin and Ether, institutional investors are looking to broaden their exposure to emerging projects such as SOL.

Standard Custody & Trust Company, a digital asset custodian based in New York, has expanded its crypto offerings to include Solana (SOL), giving institutional investors the ability to stake and custody the world’s sixth-largest cryptocurrency. 

Beginning Wednesday, institutional investors will have the ability to interact directly with Solana’s rapidly growing ecosystem through both segregated and on-chain accounts, with staking services offered through Figment, an application layer solution provider for institutions. The company said it also plans to provide custody services for Solana Program Library tokens, which are a collection of on-chain programs.

Standard Custody is rolling out support for Solana to meet growing institutional demand for SOL, which has charted exponential growth since the start of the year. Earlier this week, SOL briefly overtook Cardano (ADA) and Tether (USDT) to become the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.

Standard Custody CEO Jack McDonald credited Solana’s recent growth to nonfungible tokens and decentralized finance — two of blockchain’s biggest and most lucrative use cases. Solana’s presence in both sectors has increased dramatically in recent months.

Institutional involvement in the cryptocurrency sector has grown considerably over the past year, marking a decisive shift in how traditional investors view digital assets. Since the launch of Bitcoin (BTC) futures all the way back in December 2017, the crypto sector has delivered institutional onramps to trading platforms, secure custody solutions and new product offerings such as exchange-traded products, micro futures and, more recently, exchange-traded funds.

Related: Institutional managers bought $2B worth of Bitcoin in October

Companies such as Coinbase, Microstrategy and Riot Blockchain are also playing an important role in attracting institutional investors to crypto. As more institutional capital flows into digital assets, publicly-listed companies with direct exposure to the sector have emerged as a viable gateway for traditional investors.