The Bank That Survived 2008 Just Started Holding Bitcoin. The Revolution Is Over.
Citigroup's launching Bitcoin custody this year. When the establishment absorbs what was designed to replace it, who won?
Citigroup — the bank that needed a $476 billion government rescue in 2008 — just announced it'll hold your Bitcoin for you.
Let that sit for a second.
Bitcoin was created to eliminate exactly this. No middlemen. No banks. "Be your own bank" wasn't a slogan, it was the whole point. The 2008 financial crisis birthed Bitcoin. Satoshi Nakamoto's Genesis Block literally referenced the bank bailouts. And now Citi's turning that rebellion into a product line.
Nisha Surendran, Citi's head of digital asset custody, laid it out this week: Bitcoin's getting folded into the same custody, reporting, and tax systems they use for stocks and bonds. Launch later this year. No third-party custodians. Citi holds the crypto directly, 24/7 settlement, plugged into their $2.5 trillion custody infrastructure.
They spent three years building it. That's not a side project. That's strategy.
The Irony Is Almost Too Clean
Bitcoin's entire design was trustless. You didn't need Citigroup because the blockchain verified everything. Self-custody meant financial sovereignty. The revolution was decentralization.
Now Wall Street's offering to custody it for you.
Citi isn't alone. Fidelity launched custody years ago. Coinbase Prime holds institutional crypto. Morgan Stanley's expanding. The $3.69 billion crypto custody market's projected to hit $11 billion by 2032. Every major bank's either in or building.
And institutional clients are saying yes.
Why? Because holding your own keys is hard. One wrong move and your Bitcoin's gone. No insurance. No customer service number. Institutions managing billions can't afford that risk. So they're paying Citi to do exactly what Bitcoin was designed to make unnecessary.
What Changed?
ETFs changed everything. When BlackRock got SEC approval for a spot Bitcoin ETF, Wall Street stopped asking "if" and started asking "how do we monetize this?"
Institutional demand exploded. Pension funds, endowments, family offices — they all want exposure. But none of them want to learn cold storage or multi-sig wallets. They want Citi to handle it.
So Citi's offering the one thing Bitcoin can't: liability insurance, regulatory compliance, and someone to sue if it goes wrong.
The custodians become the gatekeepers. Again.
The Revolution Got Comfortable
Bitcoin's still decentralized at the protocol level. The code works the same. Anyone can still run a node, hold their own keys, transact peer-to-peer.
But mass adoption's happening through the front door of legacy finance. The revolution didn't fail. It just got repackaged into something institutions recognize.
Citi's not joining Bitcoin. Bitcoin joined Citi.
The question now: does it matter? If Bitcoin achieves global adoption but most of it's held in the same vaults that held the dollar, did decentralization win or just rebrand?
Wall Street's betting you won't care as long as number goes up.
They're probably right.
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