The San Fransico-based SoFi bank holds almost $170 million in crypto on its balance sheet, according to its second quarter (Q2) earnings report. The United States bank, which serves over six million customers, has seen a significant increase in its crypto holdings compared with the previous quarter.
The bank holds Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL), Dogecoin (DOGE) and Ethereum Classic (ETC). Out of the total $166 million of crypto investments, the bank holds $82 million of BTC and $55 million worth of ETH. DOGE took the third spot at almost $5 million, with ADA holdings totaling $4.5 million. An investor presentation also revealed that SoFi onboarded over 500,000 customers and now supports trading for over 22 cryptocurrencies.
SoFi not only hodls crypto; it also allows customers to buy and sell various cryptocurrencies, although it doesn’t offer any staking services. The U.S. bank started offering crypto services to its customers in September 2019 in partnership with the Coinbase crypto exchange.
However, it wasn’t a bank when it started offering crypto services and only obtained a banking license in February 2022, making it one of the few traditional banks providing crypto services.
However, SoFi’s crypto offering has not gone down well with the U.S. Federal Reserve and lawmakers. In November 2022, a U.S. Senate committee questioned SoFi’s banking law compliance while reminding it of a January 2024 deadline. Cointelegraph reached out to SoFi Bank for clarity on its compliance deadline and how it might affect its crypto holdings but didn’t receive a response by publication.
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The crypto sector’s association with mainstream banking is seen as a crucial step for mass adoption, but following a turbulent 2022 and the collapse of several crypto-focused banks in 2023, the future is uncertain.
U.S. lawmakers rushed to contain the damage and save customers’ funds, but it put a dent in partnerships between crypto and traditional finance for the future, as regulators blamed crypto for the bank’s collapse.
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