Bitcoin Global News (BGN)
November 14, 2018 -- ADVFN Crypto NewsWire -- When you are
investing in Cryptocurrencies, you may usually not think of big
banks being there to help you along the way. Still, there have been
some cases that seem to have indicated interest on the part of
large-scale financial institutions in getting directly involved in
the Crypto market.
Today, Coindesk publicized the
existence of a patent that is held by Bank of America, which
indicates their aim of being a custodian for Crypto accounts in the
future. The first caveat to this is it is not clear when Bank of
America plans to act on this patent. Secondly, it is not entirely
evident if they plan to just hold Crypto funds or do anything else
with them in the future.
Whatever the case, in this respect,
Coindesk suggests that Bank of America is looking capitalize on the
need for an aggregated enterprise account that can securely hold
all sorts of Cryptocurrencies in one place, at a large scale. With
this claim, however, comes the logical question: is trusting a bank
with the Crypto that your business takes in, secure?
Those who advocate for complete
decentralization of financial services would immediately say no to
this. Those who are more in the middle on this issue, might simply
exercise caution.
In the end, the most logical way to
tell if a bank acting as your Crypto custodian is safe is simply to
do a very specific kind of research. In a word, it would be best to
find all public information that is available on their offering and
compare it with the same sort of information on decentralized
offerings. Another way of thinking about this is to ask yourself:
which do I trust more? Do I trust a banking model in which one,
insured entity backs my Crypto or do I trust a decentralized model
in which I completely own my Crypto? One could even take this to a
third option and say, what is best is a Crypto business like
Coinbase, that could become a bank.
Of course, all of this is somewhat
of an over-simplification of a complex situation, but it is at
least a starting point for any business considering one of these
types of services. Over the long term, only time and the continued
success of Crypto-backed businesses will determine if Bank of
America and others like it, move into this area at all.
By: BGN Editorial Staff