Standard Chartered Absorbs Zodia Custody, Kraken Cuts 150 Jobs, Goldman Exits XRP and Solana ETFs

Crypto News

Standard Chartered has agreed to absorb the regulated crypto custody business of its majority-owned subsidiary Zodia Custody, with shareholders accepting the bank's offer. The deal consolidates Standard Chartered's digital asset custody operations under its corporate and institutional banking arm, while a separate entity called Zodia Solutions will be spun out under SC Ventures to provide bank-grade infrastructure to other financial institutions. The bank cited revenue and cost synergies as core drivers. Zodia Custody was originally established in 2020 as a joint venture with Northern Trust and operates as one of the few regulated Bitcoin custodians serving institutional clients across Europe and Asia, with existing clients expected to see uninterrupted service throughout the transition.

Kraken's parent company Payward reported first-quarter adjusted revenue of $507 million, a 3% year-over-year increase, even as the broader crypto market contracted sharply during the period. Total platform transaction volume reached $357 billion, while Bitcoin fell 22% and industry-wide spot trading volume dropped 38% over the same window. Futures daily average revenue trades surged 51%, supported by NinjaTrader, Breakout and expanded derivatives products. Funded accounts climbed 47% to 6.1 million. Adjusted EBITDA slipped to $18 million as the firm continued investing in acquisitions including Backed, Magna, Bitnomial and Reap, choosing diversification over near-term profitability.

Separately, Kraken reportedly laid off about 150 workers as artificial intelligence deployment reshapes internal workflows, a move that may push its long-anticipated US listing into 2027. The exchange confidentially filed for an initial public offering in November before pausing the process in March amid a deteriorating bear market. The cuts arrive during a broader industry compression in which crypto-related companies have shed more than 5,000 roles this year, with Block, Coinbase, Gemini, Crypto.com and Dune all trimming headcount and citing AI efficiencies. Co-CEO Arjun Sethi reiterated last month that the listing remains on the company's roadmap but offered no firm timeline.

Goldman Sachs sharply reduced its cryptocurrency exchange-traded fund exposure during the first quarter, exiting XRP and Solana products entirely while trimming Bitcoin and Ether positions. A Q1 13F filing showed no holdings in XRP-linked ETFs from Bitwise, Franklin Templeton, Grayscale or 21Shares, after disclosing roughly $154 million in such products at year-end 2025. The bank also unwound positions across Grayscale, Bitwise and Fidelity Solana funds. Despite the rotation, Goldman retained about $690 million in BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust and another $25 million in Fidelity's Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund, alongside a 249% jump in Circle Internet Group equity exposure, reflecting selective conviction in regulated blockchain infrastructure plays.

South Korea's KB Financial Group completed a stablecoin pilot for offline payments and cross-border remittances on the Kaia blockchain, partnering with electronic payments processor KG Inicis and fintech firm OpenAsset. The test issued a Korean won-denominated stablecoin, converted it to a US dollar token, and delivered settlement to a Vietnamese bank account in under three minutes with an 87% fee reduction relative to the same transfer through the SWIFT network. KB Kookmin, the country's largest bank with $266.7 billion in assets, also trialed merchant settlement via QR codes at Seoul coffee franchise Hollys without requiring users to install a crypto wallet, signaling a scalable rail for everyday consumer payments.

South Korea's Financial Services Commission is reportedly reviewing Hana Bank's planned $668 million purchase of a 6.55% stake in Dunamu, the operator of leading exchange Upbit, under banking-commerce separation rules that constrain bank exposure to crypto firms. Hana acquired the holding from Kakao Investment last Friday, a structure regulators say will be assessed under the same standards as a direct stake in the exchange. The probe arrives amid a broader push by Korean financial conglomerates into altcoin trading venues, following Mirae Asset's earlier agreement to acquire 92% of rival exchange Korbit, as legacy institutions race to position ahead of the long-delayed Digital Asset Basic Act.

Across these threads runs a single dominant arc: institutional consolidation of crypto infrastructure even as headline trading metrics soften. Standard Chartered and Hana Bank are pulling custody and exchange exposure in-house, KB Financial is operationalizing stablecoin rails, and Standard Chartered's research desk projects $4 trillion in tokenized assets routing through DeFi by 2028. Goldman's selective ETF rotation and Kraken's AI-driven cost discipline reflect the same calculus, with capital favoring durable platforms over speculative breadth. The cycle's defining narrative is no longer retail euphoria but the methodical wiring of regulated finance into blockchain infrastructure, even through a softer market.