There’s a lot to say about Xapo’s journey, from our start as a Bitcoin wallet provider in 2013, introducing so many people and groups to the technology in the early days, to evolving into a fully regulated Bank, with BTC and Blockchain integration is a fascinating story.
We have extensive information available on our website about Xapo Bank’s products, services and offerings. I see this as an ‘ecosystem’ of services that bridge the gap and ‘converge’ classic banking services with cutting-edge and accessible BTC services. I don’t want to focus on that here but rather the small reference on our website to ‘Est. 2013’. What does it mean? It represents our history of innovation and leadership in Bitcoin since day one.
Security, tried and tested since 2014. In our DNA
While the world now talks about security, storage and safety as being critical, we have been doing this and setting new standards since 2014. Everyone said it was a crazy ‘Bitcoin Craze’ to develop nuclear-secure bank vaults back then, but that decision led to us safeguarding nearly 900,000 BTC. Security isn’t something we claim—we’ve been proving it for over 12 years. It’s in our DNA.
Ahead of the Game
Since 2015, we’ve been strong advocates of Bitcoin and the Internet of Value, not because it’s trendy, but because we believe in its long-term potential. We’ve built a track record of commitment, and there’s real value in maintaining a relationship with a company that has consistently invested in the future of this technology.
Crypto has now become a hot topic at the World Economic Forum and Davos. For the last few years, there’s been a big buzz and focus, with international leaders, policymakers, and the wider crypto industry making a big push to involve themselves—but we were doing this in 2015. Xapo was leading the way, even when few others were paying attention.
BTC and Beyond
The CEO of the Bank of America recently said they would jump into crypto payments if regulators allow it. You’ll see in the blog post that I wrote in 2023 that Xapo Bank had already integrated blockchain-based payments to, and from, members’ USD bank accounts. Show me another bank that allows you to move beyond classic payment rails to USDC, USDT or Lightning payment rails to bridge the classic payments services space with the developing Web3 universe.
Many years before Blackrock and Greyscale launched their BTC ETFs, offering exposure to Bitcoin price rather than direct ownership (there is a big difference that I won’t go into for now), we were already talking about it in 2015.
An allocation to BTC
It was encouraging to see Blackrock publicly recommend that interested investors consider allocating 2% of their investable assets to BTC. This classified BTC as a weighting which is the same as the ‘magnificent seven’ of tech stocks in a balanced portfolio: Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Nvidia (to name a few). But here’s the thing: we’ve been making the case for a small allocation to Bitcoin in 2019, but in reality, we’ve been saying the same thing since 2013. We have never changed this view, and still maintain it today.
Know Your VASP
Our value proposition is clear: We provide a secure venue to protect and grow your wealth. Where people choose to hold, store, or control their virtual assets is up to them. We are not an exchange. We do not offer trading infrastructure or a marketplace for a wide array of altcoins because our focus is fundamentally different. Bitcoin is at the core of what we do.
I want to highlight that you need to understand the risks, not only around the assets that you choose to hold, but who you choose to hold them for you (or how you choose to hold them yourself). The issues with exchanges are much wider than FTX, and it’s helpful to see the number of exchanges that have had these issues over the last few years. More than 400 exchanges have failed. I’ve written about this before but it is something not fully understood by many people. Unlike regulated financial institutions, exchanges are not ‘regulated custodians’ of high-value assets, so they should not be assumed to offer the same level of protection.
The Future
Xapo Bank is more than just a place to hold and store BTC. What we are bringing to the market is a way to deploy your assets and generate a BTC return. This is a BTC denominated Fund with BTC denominated structured credit and lending deployments to tier 1 counterparts.
As with everything else in the space, there are high-risk and high-interest-rate returns that ‘exist’ in the BTC and L2 space. However, we take a different approach —one built on our own strategy and tested for years with our own assets. Although the Fund is now live as publicly announced, it will only be integrated into our application for qualifying members, with regulatory approval. Additionally, we offer the ability to borrow against the value of your BTC. These developments ensure that your Bitcoin can be put to work, providing opportunities to grow your holdings securely.
Check out our Youtube channel to learn more about Xapo Bank.
