Deutsche Bank Seeks Regulatory Approval for Institutional Crypto Custody

That a bank of this scale is formalizing custody rather than merely piloting it signals where institutional demand is settling: regulated safekeeping, not speculative trading. The sequencing matters more than the approval itself — custody first, tokenized assets after — because it positions the bank to intermediate settlement and issuance, not just store keys. The absence of a timeline is the real signal; regulatory comfort, not client appetite, remains the binding constraint, and how that queue moves is the open question.