NYDIG expands its play to bridge bitcoin and banking with new partnerships

Quick Take

  • Investment services company NYDIG announced a pair of new business deals this week.
  • The firm’s deal-making signals ambitions for a broader role at the intersection between banking and bitcoin. 

NYDIG has announced a flurry of partnerships that point to what, by all appearances, is an ever-expanding goal for the bitcoin services company: to broaden access to cryptocurrency in the banking world.

NYDIG, which has $6 billion of assets under custody, is the bitcoin arm of the $10 billion asset management firm Stone Ridge. Thus far, it has teamed up with FIS, Fiserv, Q2 and Alkami — all of which are providers of financial services and serve as underpinning infrastructure for local banks and credit unions.

“The breadth of these partnerships shows both the speed and scale with which the banking industry is changing, and the ubiquity and ease of access to Bitcoin that we are driving with our partners," Patrick Sells, head of bank solutions at NYDIG, told The Block.

A spate of new partnerships

One of NYDIG's recently announced partnerships was with Q2, "a leading provider of digital transformation solutions for banking and lending," according to an NYDIG release.

The two firms said that they will "collaborate together to provide the more than 18.3 million registered users on the Q2 platform with the ability to buy, sell and hold bitcoin." Sells pointed out that Q2 provides digital banking to 10% of Americans and for 30 out of the top 100 banks in the U.S.

In the release, NYDIG CEO Robert Gutmann, who is also a co-founder of Stone Ridge, said, "The work we will do together will be key to making Bitcoin as easily accessible as possible through incumbent financial institutions, enabling the continued growth of the Bitcoin network."

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NYDIG also announced a deal with Alkami, connecting Alkami's customer base — including credit unions — with NYDIG's bitcoin investment services.

"With the addition of the NYDIG solution to the Alkami Platform, Alkami’s clients can provide secure Bitcoin services that consumers and businesses can easily access and interact with through the Alkami Platform," Alkami's chief strategy and sales officer Stephen Bohanon said in a statement. Sells noted that Alkami is currently the fourth largest digital banking provider in the U.S.

The third recent deal was with Fiserv, a provider of payments solutions. According to the release, the deal similarly enables financial institutions to let their customers buy, sell and hold bitcoin. Beyond that, the two firms are working on enabling banks to provide bitcoin rewards programs. Sells told The Block that Fiserv reaches 40% of all financial institutions, touching nearly every houshold in America.

These recent deals follow NYDIG's partnership announcement with FIS in April, a deal that was also centered around giving digital banking users bitcoin management capabilities. Earlier this year, FIS took part in NYDIG's $200 million funding round. NYDIG has also raised money from Morgan Stanley, MassMutual and New York Life, among others. 

In a broader sense, this week's Q2, Alkami and Fiserv tie-ups indicate that NYDIG is eyeing a greater market share as a services provider at this particular business intersection. As for the scope of these recent partnership, data shows that NYDIG will support bitcoin buying capabilities across 48.5% of all retail banking customers at U.S. financial institutions.


© 2023 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

About Author

Frank Chaparro is Host of The Scoop podcast and Director of Special Projects. He also writes a biweekly newsletter. Chaparro started his career at Business Insider, where he specialized in the intersection of digital assets and Wall Street, market structure, and financial technology. Soon after joining Business Insider out of Fordham University, Chaparro was interviewing top finance and tech executives, including billionaire Mark Cuban, “Flash Boys” star Brad Katsuyama, Cboe Global Markets CEO Ed Tilly, and New York Stock Exchange President Tom Farley. In 2018, he become a sought after reporter in the crypto world, interviewing luminaries such as Tyler Winklevoss, the cofounder of Gemini, Jeremy Allaire, the CEO of Circle, and Fundstrat head Tom Lee. For inquiries or tips, email [email protected].