BNY, a bank that holds a substantial share of the world’s financial assets, wants its crypto clients to earn yield without moving their assets elsewhere. The banking giant will use Figment’s validator infrastructure to enable staking through its existing Digital Asset Custody service.
Figment announced the arrangement on Thursday. It is BNY’s second staking partnership this year, suggesting the bank may be developing a product line rather than conducting an experiment.
How the BNY-Figment arrangement works
The setup is straightforward, at least on paper. Eligible institutions that already hold digital assets with BNY can stake supported assets through the bank’s custody platform.
Figment operates the validators, while BNY retains custody of the assets.
Staking helps secure proof-of-stake blockchains. Holders lock up tokens to help validate transactions and receive rewards in return.
The deal allows eligible clients to stake assets held at BNY and earn rewards without transferring those assets externally. For an asset manager with ties to the pension sector, that distinction is crucial.
Figment said BNY’s target clients include asset managers, exchange-traded fund issuers, corporates and wealth management firms. Eligible clients will be able to collect staking rewards on supported assets held on the platform.
The partnership was announced on or around November 12, 2026.
The numbers behind both partners
As of June 30, 2026, BNY managed approximately $62.6 trillion in assets under custody, making it the world’s largest custodian bank.
Figment, a leading non-custodial staking provider, oversees more than $18 billion in staked assets. It serves over 1,500 institutional clients across 30 protocols.
Non-custodial is the key point. Figment operates the validators but does not take possession of client assets, allowing it to work behind a custodian such as BNY.
Background: BNY’s growing staking stack
This is not BNY’s first move into staking. In August 2026, the bank reached an agreement with Galaxy Digital that also focused on expanding staking capabilities on the same Digital Asset Custody platform.
The Figment deal also aligns with BNY’s wider digital asset expansion, which includes work on tokenized deposits and EU-regulated custody solutions under MiCA, the European Union’s crypto regulatory framework.
What the partnership means for institutions and the staking market
For institutional investors, the appeal is bringing together two things that have traditionally been separate: a trusted custodian and on-chain yield.
ETF issuers are a particularly notable group among BNY’s clients. Funds holding proof-of-stake assets have an obvious incentive to earn staking rewards, and using their existing custodian to do so could considerably simplify operations.
The use of multiple providers also matters. With Galaxy Digital and Figment both involved, BNY can avoid depending on a single validator operator, a prudent step given that validator downtime or penalties can reduce rewards.
