21Shares appointed Standard Chartered as its digital custodian in an agreement announced at the end of November 2025, a move that underscores the growing participation of traditional banking in the crypto segment. The decision, intended to deliver banking-grade security to 21Shares’ product suite, connects one of the largest ETP issuers with the infrastructure of a bank classified as a G-SIB.
Standard Chartered becomes the new digital custodian of 21Shares.
Standard Chartered will provide custody services through its Luxembourg-registered platform supervised by the CSSF, assuming full safekeeping and operational oversight of the digital assets underlying 21Shares’ products. Custody, in this context, refers to the secure storage and management of client assets under strict compliance and security standards.
21Shares manages a portfolio of nearly 40 ETPs, and according to the institutional note cited by the company, the alliance aims to remove barriers for institutional investors that require strict regulatory frameworks and bank-level risk controls.
“Partnering with Standard Chartered marks an important milestone in our continued mission to bring institutional-grade infrastructure to the digital asset ecosystem,” said Mandy Chiu, Global Head of Product Development at 21Shares, in the announcement quoted by the firm.
The bank has articulated a broad digital-asset strategy that goes beyond custody: in July 2025 it launched deliverable spot Bitcoin and Ethereum trading from its UK branch, and has developed partnerships for stablecoin infrastructure and institutional settlement solutions.
Among these collaborations are agreements with StraitsX for stablecoins and a collateral-mirroring program designed to reduce counterparty risk by allowing clients to custody assets with the bank while trading on an external venue, expanded to the EEA in October 2025. The bank has also integrated with DeFi platforms for tokenized assets, including custody of a tokenized money-market fund on Polygon.
The entry of a G-SIB into custody for such a significant ETP provider introduces competitive pressure on native crypto custodians and even on Standard Chartered’s own co-founded subsidiary, Zodia Custody, whose strategic trajectory is now under review. The presence of traditional banking adds regulatory scalability and institutional-network access but may centralize operational control in actors with greater compliance muscle.
Practical implications: institutional investors that require KYC/AML, governance frameworks, and NAV-linked reporting will find it easier to evaluate and allocate to ETPs supported by a bank custodian. For issuers, this integration can reduce friction when approaching pension funds, endowments, and institutional managers that prioritize counterparties with clear licensing and regulatory oversight.
The appointment of Standard Chartered as 21Shares’ custodian reinforces the accelerating institutionalization of crypto markets, setting a competitive shift that may force native custodians to redefine their value proposition. The next milestone will be the complete operational rollout from Luxembourg—and how large institutional allocators respond to this banking-grade framework in the coming months.