Bank of New York Mellon, the oldest bank in the United States, announced its plans to launch operations involving bitcoins and other digital assets, as well as a institutional-grade cryptocurrency storage service.

“BNY Mellon is proud to be the first global bank to announce plans to provide an integrated service for digital assets,” Roman Regelman, CEO of asset servicing and head of digital at BNY Mellon, said in a press release.

The bank will llow digital currencies to pass through the same financial network, which is currently used for traditional assets such as US Treasuries. The decision was made in response to the growing demand from the bank's clients among asset managers.

“Growing client demand for digital assets, maturity of advanced solutions, and improving regulatory clarity present a tremendous opportunity for us to extend our current service offerings to this emerging field.”

New cryptocurrency-related services are expected to arrive at BNY Mellon in late 2021.

As noted by CNBC, previously, major US custodian banks expressed concerns about potential regulatory or legal risks associated with banking the cryptocurrency market. But as the prices of bitcoin and other digital assets continue to rise, they are becoming increasingly popular with asset managers, hedge funds and other institutional investors.

According to CoinMetrics, bitcoin is up over 60% since the beginning of 2021 and is trading above $48,250.