The largest German lender, Deutsche Bank, is planning to start offering digital currency custody services, along with other crypto-specific services for institutional investors, becoming one of the many banks to jump into cryptocurrency recently.

The bank disclosed its intentions to offer institutional crypto services in a report published by the World Economic Forum in December, however, it was overlooked by most.

Banks Entering Crypto

Deutsche Bank’s services were listed along with some of the major crypto service providers like Bitgo, Gemini, Metamask and several others.

Apart from the German bank, many other global lending giants are diving into crypto one way or the other. Last December, Singapore’s DBS launched similar crypto custodian and exchange services for institutions. Most recently, BNY Mellon revealed its intentions to offer digital asset-based services to its asset management clients.

Deutsche Bank’s digital asset services are still a prototype, and there is no deadline publically announced by the bank for the launch.

“Deutsche Bank aims to develop a fully integrated custody platform for institutional clients and their digital assets providing seamless connectivity to the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem,” the report explained.

Though the German bank is initiating the crypto services by only offering custody, it has plans to introduce  Tokenization  Tokenization Tokenization represents the process of substituting a sensitive data element with a non-sensitive equivalent, i.e. token, which bears no extrinsic or exploitable meaning or value. In essence, the rights to the ownership of an asset are converted into a digital token. Tokenization can be used to own an entire unit of an asset. For example, one token that represents the ownership of a piece of real estate or to split ownership of a single unity of an asset such as 200,000 tokens, each one representing 0.05% of a piece of real estate.Tokenization has been described as the future of ownership. Some analysts believe that one day, tokenized systems will completely replace paper certification-based ownership systems. However, blockchain-based ownership records are not currently recognized as legally valid in most places in the world. Tokenization combined with blockchain is quite powerful, while also being useful in terms of PCI data security. When a token is issued on a blockchain, the blockchain records the issuance and maintains a ledger of every single movement of that token.A notable feature of blockchain with regards to tokens is that it controls for the double-spend issue. Prior to the innovation of blockchain, any digital asset such as an image, or document, could be copied an infinite number of times by anyone with access to it. Exploring Possibilities of Asset TokenizationBy overcoming the double-spend problem, blockchain can now facilitate the use of tokens that can be used in a similar way to casino chips or banknotes. This has opened up tokens as a vehicle for investment in multiple projects.Asset tokenization reflects the next evolution in tokenization. Tokenizing an asset involves issuing a digital token on a blockchain. As such, the token represents an underlying tangible or intangible asset. In this way, the economic value of the asset is conferred to the token. The ownership of the asset is represented by ownership of the token on the blockchain. Tokenization represents the process of substituting a sensitive data element with a non-sensitive equivalent, i.e. token, which bears no extrinsic or exploitable meaning or value. In essence, the rights to the ownership of an asset are converted into a digital token. Tokenization can be used to own an entire unit of an asset. For example, one token that represents the ownership of a piece of real estate or to split ownership of a single unity of an asset such as 200,000 tokens, each one representing 0.05% of a piece of real estate.Tokenization has been described as the future of ownership. Some analysts believe that one day, tokenized systems will completely replace paper certification-based ownership systems. However, blockchain-based ownership records are not currently recognized as legally valid in most places in the world. Tokenization combined with blockchain is quite powerful, while also being useful in terms of PCI data security. When a token is issued on a blockchain, the blockchain records the issuance and maintains a ledger of every single movement of that token.A notable feature of blockchain with regards to tokens is that it controls for the double-spend issue. Prior to the innovation of blockchain, any digital asset such as an image, or document, could be copied an infinite number of times by anyone with access to it. Exploring Possibilities of Asset TokenizationBy overcoming the double-spend problem, blockchain can now facilitate the use of tokens that can be used in a similar way to casino chips or banknotes. This has opened up tokens as a vehicle for investment in multiple projects.Asset tokenization reflects the next evolution in tokenization. Tokenizing an asset involves issuing a digital token on a blockchain. As such, the token represents an underlying tangible or intangible asset. In this way, the economic value of the asset is conferred to the token. The ownership of the asset is represented by ownership of the token on the blockchain. Read this Term and trading as well. The bank detailed that it will partner with prime brokerages, issuers and vetted exchanges for offering trading services to its institutional clients.

Additionally, it will introduce value-added services like “taxation, valuation services and fund administration, lending,  Staking  Staking Staking is defined as the process of holding funds in a cryptocurrency wallet to support the operations of a blockchain network. In particular, staking represents a bid to secure a volume of crypto to receive rewards. In most case however, this process relies on users participating in blockchain-related activities via a personal crypto wallet.The concept of staking is also closely tied to the Proof-of-Stake (PoS). PoS is a type of consensus algorithm in which a blockchain network aims to achieve distributed consensus.This notably differs from Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchains that instead rely on mining to verify and validate new blocks.Conversely, PoS chains produce and validate new blocks through staking. This allows for blocks to be produced without relying on mining hardware. As such, instead of competing for the next block with heavy computation work, PoS validators are selected based on the number of coins they are committing to stake.Users that stake larger amounts of coins have a higher chance of being chosen as the next block validator. Staking ExplainedStaking requires a direct investment in the cryptocurrency, while each PoS blockchain has its particular staking currency.The production of blocks via staking enables a higher degree of scalability. Moreover, some chains have also moved to adopt the Delegated Proof of Staking (DPoS) model. DPoS allows users to simply signal their support through other participants of the network. In other words, a trusted participant works on behalf of users during decision-making events.The delegated validators or nodes are the ones that handle the major operations and overall governance of a blockchain network. These participate in the processes of reaching consensus and defining key governance parameters. Staking is defined as the process of holding funds in a cryptocurrency wallet to support the operations of a blockchain network. In particular, staking represents a bid to secure a volume of crypto to receive rewards. In most case however, this process relies on users participating in blockchain-related activities via a personal crypto wallet.The concept of staking is also closely tied to the Proof-of-Stake (PoS). PoS is a type of consensus algorithm in which a blockchain network aims to achieve distributed consensus.This notably differs from Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchains that instead rely on mining to verify and validate new blocks.Conversely, PoS chains produce and validate new blocks through staking. This allows for blocks to be produced without relying on mining hardware. As such, instead of competing for the next block with heavy computation work, PoS validators are selected based on the number of coins they are committing to stake.Users that stake larger amounts of coins have a higher chance of being chosen as the next block validator. Staking ExplainedStaking requires a direct investment in the cryptocurrency, while each PoS blockchain has its particular staking currency.The production of blocks via staking enables a higher degree of scalability. Moreover, some chains have also moved to adopt the Delegated Proof of Staking (DPoS) model. DPoS allows users to simply signal their support through other participants of the network. In other words, a trusted participant works on behalf of users during decision-making events.The delegated validators or nodes are the ones that handle the major operations and overall governance of a blockchain network. These participate in the processes of reaching consensus and defining key governance parameters. Read this Term and voting, and provide an open-banking platform to allow onboarding of third-party providers.”

“The platform will be embedded with a full suite of regulated banking services, including KYC/AML, compliance, settlement and more,” the report explained. “Deutsche Bank will help users to focus on what’s important – their investment decisions. This platform will focus on simplifying the customer experience and design implementation as a means of creating a differentiated product.”