Standard Chartered Is First Systemic Bank to Offer Spot Crypto

By Harry Wilson

July 15, 2025 at 11:26 AM GMT+1

Standard Chartered Plc said it’s the first global systemically-important bank to offer a spot crypto trading service, allowing corporate and institutional clients to buy and sell Bitcoin and Ether.

While some of its rivals have steered clear of crypto currencies, Standard Chartered Chief Executive Officer Bill Winters said on Tuesday that digital assets were becoming a “foundational” part of the world’s financial system.

“As client demand accelerates further, we want to offer clients a route to transact, trade and manage digital asset risk safely and efficiently with regulatory requirements,” Winters said in a statement.

The bank will initially offer spot trading for Bitcoin and Ether through its UK-based unit, with plans to roll out trading in non-deliverable forwards soon, according to the statement.

Standard Chartered said it is the first of the world’s financially interconnected banks to begin trading directly in crypto assets, having already set up a digital asset custody service for its institutional and corporate clients.

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Friday, July 4, 2025

AI or BTC

There is great conspiracy theory! Binance founder Changpeng Zhao says Satoshi Nakamoto might be an AI from the future.

In a recent interview with social media influencers from Turkey, former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (also known as CZ) shared an interesting theory about where Bitcoin might have come from.

CZ suggested that maybe Bitcoin wasn’t created by a human at all. Instead, he said it’s possible that an artificial intelligence (AI) from the future made Bitcoin, and that AI might even be the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto.

CZ said, "It might be software coming back through time," meaning the technology could have traveled from the future to our time. He admitted that it sounds hard to believe, but he thinks it could be one of the stranger possible explanations for who made Bitcoin.

Even though CZ shared this idea, he made it clear that he doesn’t actually know who created Bitcoin. He said he has never interacted with the real creator. While CZ knows some people who were around when Bitcoin first started, the true inventor is still unknown.

CZ also pointed out that if a group of people had created Bitcoin together, it would have been very difficult for them to keep their identities a secret. But if it was just one person, it would be easier for them to stay hidden.

Over the years, several people have been suggested as possible candidates for being Satoshi Nakamoto. Some of the names mentioned include Hal Finney, Nick Szabo, and Adam Back. There was even an HBO documentary last year that suggested Canadian developer Peter Todd might be Satoshi, but most people in the cryptocurrency community didn’t believe that theory.

Even though Bitcoin is already famous, the mystery of who Satoshi Nakamoto really is continues to be a major topic of discussion in the crypto world.