This Little-Known Bank Is Leading the Latest Crypto Charge

Andy Snyder|September 9, 2021

Crypto is having its moment… again.

The money world is celebrating the news from El Salvador this week. The country now recognizes Bitcoin as real money… good everywhere sales are made.

That’s big.

But we don’t think it’s the biggest story.

For that… we must dig deeper. While the gold that’s on the surface draws the crowd, the real riches lie buried beneath.

Getting out our shovels, we learn that something bigger is happening in the crypto world. It doesn’t involve a third-world country or its “here today, gone tomorrow” economy.

This revolution is happening right here at home.

And it’s huge.

All year, we’ve been telling our readers to watch for a major shift in the way digital money is traded and owned. Historically, it’s been an odd practice. Some coins are traded here… others can only be had there. You might need a digital wallet… or maybe not.

We’ve said a big change will come. It must.

And whoever leads the charge will get rich.

That day is here.

Cashing In

It’s not getting much press, but the folks behind family-owned Vast Bank just did something big.

They unveiled a program that allows customers to purchase crypto directly in their FDIC-insured checking accounts.

It means the market is opening to an entirely new crowd… the huge crowd of folks who are interested in crypto but aren’t so sure about the technological hoops.

Straight from the CEO of Vast Bank, Brad Scrivner…

There’s lots of different customers out there that may want to control everything and have their own wallet, their own passcodes, and then there are those who are crypto curious and may prefer to work with a bank or an intermediary, just because they don’t quite understand.

Curious?

There are two reasons this is a huge leap forward for the crypto space.

The first is the most obvious. Some 60% of folks surveyed say they are interested in the concept of digital money and the idea of decentralized finance. But, again, many are too timid to get in.

As Vast leads the way for more banks to make such offerings, those barriers will crumble.

The 60% will have their chance… and their experiences will likely attract the other 40%.

Bigger yet is the regulatory side of all this.

Banks, as you know, have a lot of keepers. There’s an alphabet soup of regulators that supposedly keep the industry from going off the rails.

There’s the FDIC, FRS, OTS, SEC and OCC, to name just a few.

Scrivner and his bank went toe-to-toe with at least two of them, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve.

We’ve bitten our tongue as we’ve said it several times before… but in order for crypto to go mainstream, it’s going to have to at least get a wink and a nod from the regulators.

In this case, Vast Bank got even more than that. It got full-on approval.

That’s critical. It brings crypto close enough to the regulatory space that it gains some familiarity, but not so close that it breeds contempt.

Who’s Making Money

Our first question on learning this news is: Who else is behind it? After all, Vast Bank is simply the front for the activity. It hosts the accounts. Somebody else must be making the transactions.

With a bit of digging, we learned that Coinbase (COIN) and SAP (SAP) are the folks working behind the scenes.

Coinbase is providing the market data feeds and the order routing. SAP is providing all the critical digital connections between the bank, its customers and the crypto market.

This is proof that the industry is not only coming together but also maturing in a very healthy way.

Coinbase is no longer a half-cocked way to speculate on the price of digital money. It is now working to form the backbone of the digital economy.

This is news to watch.

More banks will offer similar services by the end of the year. They have to. Customers are demanding it.

We’re watching the next generation of this opportunity unfold.

In fact, just yesterday, we released a brand-new video on what this third-generation technology looks like… and what moneymaking opportunities will come with it.

You can watch it – for free – right here.