BitGo Shifts Focus Beyond Custody to Prime Brokerage, Targets 100% of Revenue
Summary
- BitGo said it will push its prime brokerage business as a core growth driver beyond simple custody.
- Chief Executive Officer Mike Belshe said he wants prime brokerage to “ultimately become 100% of revenue.”
- BitGo said it plans to secure additional revenue streams by shifting from a custody fee-focused model to a prime brokerage pricing model.
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U.S. digital-asset custodian BitGo plans to make prime brokerage its main growth engine, moving beyond simple asset safekeeping to offer trading, lending and payments on a single platform.
Bloomberg reported on October 6 that BitGo co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Mike Belshe said in an interview in Singapore that he wants prime brokerage to “ultimately become 100% of revenue.”
Prime brokerage allows clients to keep assets with a custodian while trading on the same platform, borrowing against those holdings and settling transactions. BitGo’s strategy is to use custody as a base to offer broader financial services and generate additional revenue streams.
“We want to be a place that helps customers make money, not a place that charges them fees,” Belshe said.
Competition is intensifying as more traditional financial institutions move into the digital-asset custody market. BNY Mellon, DBS Bank and U.S. Bank already offer crypto custody services, while Deutsche Bank is also preparing to launch a related service.
BitGo currently has more than 6,000 clients. It launched BitGo Prime in 2020. This year, the company expanded its financial services and added a feature that gives clients access in one place to liquidity from exchanges and market makers.
Belshe called it a natural progression to custody assets, lend against them and provide trading. He said the company is now trying to shift customers from a custody-fee model to a prime-brokerage pricing model.
He added that some clients may still need standalone custody services, such as exchange-traded funds that simply hold Bitcoin. Belshe did not provide a specific timeline for achieving the company’s prime brokerage expansion goal.
