Citibank and Morgan Stanley to Launch Bitcoin Services

While Bitcoin's price had another volatile month, interest in Bitcoin products on Wall Street continues to rise.

This week, we can add Citibank and Morgan Stanley to the list of institutions that plan to add digital assets services to their product suites. While this was happening, another solo miner found a Bitcoin block. 

TL;DR

• Citibank and Morgan Stanley plan to launch dedicated Bitcoin services later this year. 

• More and more solo miners are finding Bitcoin blocks nowadays. 

Citibank and Morgan Stanley Plan Bitcoin Services for 2026 🚀

I have written about the increase in institutional Bitcoin adoption a few times on Proof of Words, and there is no slowing down this week! 

At the Bitcoin for Corporations’ event in Las Vegas, Citibank’s Nisha Surendran announced plans for Bitcoin services later this year.

These services will include new infrastructure to offer institutional client access to Bitcoin, all with an institutional-grade custody setup, wallet management, and 24/7 settlement. 

She further explained that the goal of these services will be to make Bitcoin more “bankable” and offer customers a simple integration into this emerging market.

These new Bitcoin services are designed to be fully integrated with the bank's existing systems.

But there is more!

Next to Nisha Surendran, we also heard from Morgan Stanley. 

The bank's newly appointed digital assets strategy head, Amy Oldenburg, also said they will offer Bitcoin custody, yield products, lending, and trading. 

According to Oldenburg, the investment bank has assessed the market and decided it needs to build its own in-house capabilities before rolling out Bitcoin offerings to its clients.

She further elaborated that the bank needs to build this infrastructure internally because it can't primarily rent the technology to do this. People expect Morgan Stanley’s brand and trust to be a no-fail. 

Solo Miners Are Finding Bitcoin Blocks Now 👀

Bitcoin mining is the backbone of the Bitcoin network and an extremely resource-intensive process. 

The odds of finding a Bitcoin block as a small at-home miner are extremely low. However, that doesn’t keep so-called “solo miners” from trying.

Solo miners typically use either small home ASIC devices or rent short-term hashrate through services that connect them to a solo mining pool server, contributing to network security in the hope of mining a block and scoring the block reward.  

Interestingly, it has happened more than 20 times in the last twelve months that “solo miners” have found a Bitcoin block and earned the 3.125 BTC block reward. 

The same happened last week: a solo miner earned the block reward, worth about $200,000 at current prices, after successfully mining block 938,092. 

He used on-demand hashrate, which involved spending around 119,000 satoshis (approximately $75 at the time) to rent 1 petahash per second of computing power. This process also incurred a minor fee for solo-mining.

This is a relatively new process in the mining world, with the goal of democratizing the industry and enabling individuals to participate (without having to spend big on mining infrastructure). 

The whole solo miner setup is relatively cheap to run, either by buying a small home miner or by relying on on-demand hashrate, and is an interesting way to take part in the Bitcoin network…

…and the very very lucky few, might even end up mining a block. 😁

Elsewhere in Bitcoin 📖

A quick look at what else has been happening in Bitcoin: 

• The number of Bitcoin addresses holding >100 BTC has reached 20,000

• Interest in “how to buy Bitcoin” has reached a new five-year all-time high

• Mt.Gox’s former CEO wants to hardfork Bitcoin to recover 80,000 BTC

• The Bitcoin whitepaper is on display at the New York Stock Exchange

• Strategy’s CEO says people will still call Bitcoin a fad in the future

Your fellow stacker in sats, 

Patrick Lowry

PS: Connect with me up on X if you want to hear more of my thoughts on Bitcoin and digital assets.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this newsletter are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of any associated company. This newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, financial, or any other professional advice. Nothing here is a solicitation, offer, or recommendation to buy or sell any asset or to use any service. Investing in cryptocurrencies is highly speculative and carries a significant risk of substantial financial loss, so you must conduct your own thorough research and consult with independent professional advisors before making any decisions.