Is Anchorage Digital, the Wall Street-backed crypto firm, facing a serious threat?

Visa is reportedly joining the Global Dollar Network (USDG) stablecoin consortium.The company will become the first traditional finance player to join the consortium that shares out yield to participants that create connectivity and liquidity, CoinDesk reported Monday (April 14), citing unnamed sources.Reached by PYMNTS, a Visa spokesperson said in an email that the company does not comment on rumor or speculation.USDG members include Paxos, Robinhood, Kraken, Galaxy Digital, Anchorage Digital, Bullish and Nuvei, according to the CoinDesk report.It was reported in November that the Global Dollar Network introduced a joint stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar and aimed to accelerate the use of stablecoins worldwide and promote an asset that provides proportionate economic benefits to its partners.In a Nov. 4 press release announcing the launch of the consortium, the Global Dollar Network said membership is open to custodians, exchanges, payment FinTechs, merchants, protocols, card networks, banks and investment platforms.It added that the network will focus on the Global Dollar (USDG), which is a stablecoin issued out of Singapore by Paxos.“Stablecoins are replatforming the financial system and revolutionizing how people interact with U.S. dollars and payments,” Paxos CEO and co-founder Charles Cascarilla said in the release. “However, the leading stablecoins are unregulated and retain all the reserve economics. Global Dollar Network will return virtually all rewards to participants and is open for anyone to join.”Stablecoins have started to decouple themselves from crypto exchanges and position themselves as a component of real-world financial infrastructure, PYMNTS reported in March.This change comes amid signs of broader adoption of stablecoins in mainstream financial activities including B2B payments, capital markets, lending, cross-border payments and treasury management.Visa launched a new platform in October that enables banks to issue fiat-backed tokens, such as stablecoins and tokenized deposits.The Visa Tokenized Asset Platform (VTAP) is designed to use the payment company’s expertise in technologies like smart contracts to let banks issue and transfer fiat-backed tokens over blockchain networks.“Visa has been at the forefront of digital payments for nearly 60 years, and with the introduction of VTAP, we are once again setting the pace for the industry,” Vanessa Colella, global head of innovation and digital partnerships at Visa, said at the time

Digital asset trust bank Anchorage Digital will safeguard some of the Bitcoin and Ethereum held by BlackRock’s exchange-traded funds, according to two Securities and Exchange Commission filings submitted on Tuesday.A digital asset trust bank is like a regular bank, but it’s allowed to hold cryptocurrencies on behalf of clients, while Anchorage also specializes in staking, trading, and governance.The world’s largest asset manager may use several custody accounts at the San Francisco-based bank to maintain funds for its $45 billion iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF, or IBIT, and $1.8 billion iShares Ethereum Trust ETF, or ETHA, BlackRock stated in the filings.Anchorage’s arrangement with BlackRock underscores the asset manager’s “ongoing risk management approach” and “expanding presence in the digital asset space,” BlackRock stated.BlackRock had already tapped crypto exchange Coinbase as a custodian for its two crypto funds, alongside several other asset managers that launched new products for the industry’s two largest cryptocurrencies by market value last year.“We are excited by the opportunity to set a new standard for tailored access to the digital asset class,” Anchorage co-founder and CEO Nathan McCauley said in a statement. “We are helping BlackRock to meet client demand for today and tomorrow.”So far, Coinbase has been dominant in securing billions of dollars' worth of digital assets for the Wall Street products. Asset manager VanEck custodies its Bitcoin ETF with crypto exchange Gemini, while financial titan Fidelity self-custodies the BTC backing its Bitcoin fund.Anchorage entered into a custody arrangement with crypto asset manager 21Shares in September, safeguarding funds for its spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs. The digital asset trust bank also began supporting tokens on layer-1 network Aptos, including BlackRock’s USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL), in December.BlackRock’s custodial arrangement with Coinbase will not be affected by the firm’s new deal with Anchorage, which received its federal charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in January 2021, the asset manager said.BlackRock isn’t planning on moving funds to Anchorage from Coinbase, but it can decide how funds are split between the two firms at its “sole discretion,” the asset manager stated.Edited by Stacy ElliottDaily Debrief NewsletterStart every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more