Investment bank TD Cowen has said that Bitcoin is more than an asset — and will be increasingly used as financial infrastructure to underpin institutional products.
Writing in a Tuesday note, TD Cowen said that after attending a BitcoinTreasuries Conference this week in New York, it noticed institutions were more than interested in just accumulating the leading cryptocurrency.
The comments come as major banks around the world delve deeper into the technology that underpins Bitcoin, with firms offering — and using — crypto products for customers and to streamline their own services.
“Bitcoin increasingly appears to be moving beyond its role as an investable asset and toward a broader role as financial infrastructure capable of supporting new capital-markets activity,” the report read.
“In our view, the most interesting conversations were not necessarily about bitcoin itself, but about the ecosystem being built around it,” the report continued.
It added that Bitcoin could be used in its next phase by “supporting capital markets infrastructure.”
Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin treasury Strategy has long argued that the leading cryptocurrency will underpin other products in the financial sector. The company, which is the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, currently offers preferred stocks which pay investors dividends.
TD Cowen said that bitcoin custody was becoming more institutional as “larger pools of capital enter the ecosystem.”
U.S. and European banks have spoken about or started offering bitcoin custody services in recent years.
BNY Mellon in 2022 became the first major U.S. bank to offer digital asset custody services. And this month, German multinational Deutsche Bank said it would debut a bitcoin custody service for European corporate and institutional clients later in 2026.
“We believe these developments suggest that bitcoin is continuing to evolve from a standalone asset into a broader financial ecosystem capable of supporting increasingly sophisticated institutional participation,” TD Cowen added.
TD Cowen is a division of multinational TD Securities.