Deutsche Bank Shock: Bitcoin Custody Launch Lands With BTC At $75,500

Gerald Podobnik, co-head of Deutsche Bank’s corporate bank, said in a statement on Wednesday that “digital assets are not a replacement for the traditional financial system but an important complement to it,” as Germany’s largest bank confirmed it will begin holding bitcoin and ether for institutional clients in Europe before the end of the year. Bitcoin traded at $75,547 on Wednesday afternoon, little changed over 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.

The announcement landed a day after the U.S. Senate voted 49-50 against advancing the Clarity Act, the market-structure bill the crypto industry had spent the year lobbying for. Deutsche Bank’s route runs through Europe’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regime instead. The bank expects to receive its custody licence in October, a spokesperson told Cointelegraph.

“We see them as new rails that can coexist with existing market infrastructures while benefiting from the trust, security and safeguards that regulated financial institutions provide,” Podobnik said. “Our aim is to offer clients a secure and regulated gateway to this evolving market.”

What the bank will actually hold

At launch the service covers “a selected range of digital assets, including Bitcoin and Ether, as well as selected stable coins or e-money tokens, including USDC and EURC, EURAU,” the bank said. Circle issues the first two. EURAU is the euro stablecoin of AllUnity, a joint venture between Galaxy, Flow Traders and DWS, the asset manager Deutsche Bank majority-owns, which received a BaFin e-money licence in July 2025. “Tokenized financial instruments are also included in the roadmap,” the release added.