Boston-based Circle Internet Financial has announced the company has selected BNY Mellon to custody the firm’s usd coin (USDC) reserves. The company’s dollar-pegged crypto asset is currently the second-largest stablecoin with a current market capitalization of $51.6 billion.

BNY Mellon to Become USDC’s Primary Custodian

Circle has chosen America’s oldest investment bank to custody the firm’s usd coin (USDC) reserves, according to an announcement published on March 31. While BNY Mellon will become the primary custodian for USDC, Circle expects the partnership to further “facilitate an exchange of expertise on a range of topics across digital and traditional markets.”

The announcement on Thursday says the benefits of the newly announced relationship between Circle and BNY Mellon include:

Bridging of traditional and digital capital markets, investment management, digital asset custody, cash management for fiat and non-fiat payments, and the exploration of digital cash for purposes of settlement.

At the time of writing, USDC is the second-largest stablecoin under tether (USDT) and the crypto asset is pegged to the price of the U.S. dollar. During the last 24 hours, USDC has seen $4.38 billion in 24-hour global trade volume, and the stablecoin has seen enormous growth during the last 12 months.

On March 31, 2021, USDC’s market capitalization was $10.8 billion and it’s grown 377.77% since last year to $51.6 billion. Today, USDC’s most dominant trading pairs include USDT, USD, BUSD, WETH, and EUR respectively.

During the announcement concerning Circle selecting BNY Mellon as USDC’s primary custodian, BNY Mellon executive Roman Regelman said that the finance industry faces an evolutionary turning point.

“We are at a point in the evolution of our industry where the digitization of assets is presenting new and exciting opportunities to a broad range of market participants. BNY Mellon continues to provide products and services to players in this evolving market,” Regelman, the CEO of asset servicing and head of digital at BNY Mellon said.