Deutsche Bank Launches Bitcoin and Ether Custody

Deutsche Bank opens custody for five crypto assets

The lender first outlined the service in September, while the regulatory process was still underway. In October, its corporate banking co-head told Reuters the German launch was weeks away. Wednesday’s confirmation establishes that the service is handling paying clients.

The asset list covers Bitcoin and Ether, as well as Circle’s dollar-pegged USDC, Circle’s euro-pegged EURC and AllUnity’s euro-pegged EURAU. Eligible clients use Autobahn, the bank’s corporate banking portal. The initial offering includes transfers to third parties and movements between the bank’s online and offline storage environments.

The bank says it protects private keys using dedicated hardware and requires more than one person to approve certain actions. Clients can configure their own transfer approval process. The eligible client base includes asset managers, companies and sovereign institutions, with onboarding subject to the bank’s checks.

The launch follows a technology agreement with Taurus announced in 2023. That agreement covered tools for safeguarding digital assets and issuing tokens. With commercial custody live, eligible clients can use their existing banking relationship to hold crypto directly and delegate key management.

MiCA register lists custody and transfers

The European Securities and Markets Authority’s register records an October 12 notification to Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, known as BaFin. It lists two services, custody and transfers, across 30 European Economic Area countries. The bank’s product page identifies Germany as the launch market and qualifies cross-border service by applicable regulation.

The entry cites Article 60 of the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, the route through which a credit institution notifies its national regulator before offering crypto services. Article 75 requires custodians to record each client’s positions, keep client holdings separate from their own and set out procedures for returning assets.

The same article requires a client agreement covering the custody policy, security arrangements and charges. In the United States, Coinbase’s new federal trust bank charter sets out a three-year transition for an existing New York custody business. Both developments bring crypto custody under banking supervision through different regulatory routes.

Those rules govern the custody relationship. Deutsche Bank’s September disclosure says that crypto holdings lack deposit-guarantee protection comparable to eligible bank deposits. The price of a client’s Bitcoin or Ether can still fall while the bank holds it.

Deutsche Asset Management plans a tokenized money market fund

Deutsche Bank also signed a memorandum of understanding with Deutsche Asset Management, its majority-owned fund manager formerly known as DWS. The Block’s account of the announcement says the firms will explore tokenized money market funds, crypto exchange-traded commodities and stablecoins, including how they could use the custody platform for settlement.

Chief Product Officer Manfred Bauer said the asset manager plans to launch a tokenized money market fund. A tokenized fund uses a blockchain to represent shares in a fund portfolio. J.P. Morgan’s MONY fund offers one example. It opened to qualified investors in December 2025 through a private placement on Ethereum.

For the two Deutsche Bank businesses, custody would be one part of that work. The agreement also covers how money would move between parties to complete transactions and how the asset manager might distribute the products. The announcement described those arrangements as areas for collaboration.

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index registered 29 on Wednesday, in the Fear range, down from 32 on Tuesday.

The public launch details did not identify the first paying clients or give figures for fees or assets under custody. Deutsche Asset Management gave no date for the fund, and the bank has yet to name the Asian markets where it previously said it hoped to expand in 2027.