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BitGo Holdings and 21Shares said Thursday they have expanded their existing partnership to include custody and staking services supporting 21Shares’ crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs) for investors in the United States and Europe.
Under the agreement, BitGo will deliver qualified custody, trading and execution services and integrated staking infrastructure for 21Shares’ US exchange-traded funds and global ETPs. The arrangement also provides 21Shares with access to liquidity across electronic and over-the-counter markets, according to the announcement.
BitGo said the services will be delivered through its regulated entities in the US and Europe, including its federally chartered trust bank approved by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and its MiCA-licensed operations authorized by Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority.
21Shares, a subsidiary of FalconX, is one of the largest crypto ETF issuers globally, with 59 exchange-traded products listed across 13 exchanges and more than $5.4 billion in assets under management as of Feb. 11, according to its website.
The move comes less than a month after BitGo, a digital asset infrastructure company based in Palo Alto, California, began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker BTGO.
Related: BitGo’s IPO pop turns volatile as shares slip below offer price
Staking moves deeper into regulated products
In recent months, institutional custody platforms have increasingly embedded staking services into their core offerings as investor demand grows for yield-generating crypto infrastructure.
In October, Coinbase expanded its integration with staking infrastructure provider Figment, allowing Coinbase Prime and Coinbase Custody clients to stake Avalanche (AVAX), Aptos (APT), Sui (SUI) and Solana (SOL) directly from Coinbase custody.
About a month later, Anchorage Digital partnered with Figment to add staking for Hyperliquid (HYPE), offering the service through Anchorage Digital Bank and its Singapore entity, with access also available via its Porto self-custody wallet.
On Feb. 9, Ripple said it expanded its institutional custody platform through integrations with Securosys and Figment, adding hardware security module support that allows banks and custodians to offer crypto custody and staking services without running their own validator or key management infrastructure.
There has also been growing institutional interest in liquid staking, which allows investors to earn proof-of-stake rewards while receiving a tradable token that keeps their underlying assets liquid.
On Tuesday, Hong Kong-based custodian Hex Trust announced it has partnered with the Jito Foundation to integrate JitoSOL, a liquid staking token on the Solana blockchain, enabling clients to earn staking and MEV rewards while keeping their SOL liquid and eligible for use as collateral in borrowing and lending through its markets platform.
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