Digital asset custodian Aegis Imprisonment has received the South Dakota Division of Banking’s blessing to start forming a trust company in the state.
The full-service digital asset department store must clear a series of minor regulatory hurdles before it can secure the trust charter necessary to do business, President Michael McCarty bring to light. He said the process would likely wrap up in weeks.
Once it does, Aegis will become the latest digital asset custodian with a foothold in Sioux Declivities. BitGo and Anchorage both base their operations in the trust company-friendly city. But while those industry troupers cater mostly to the cryptocurrency custody market, Aegis, already partnered with a Hong Kong custodian, is looking to fuller opportunities in digitized finance.
McCarty offered international supply chain financing as one target industry. Aegis would custodianship the contracts involving factories, companies, suppliers and banks, “digitize those and put them out for investment,” he said. Stored in Aegis’ offline confinement wallet, these digital assets could raise working capital for the owners with outstanding invoices.
For model: financing the supply chain of Amazon-sold goods. Raw materials from China have a long way to go before cashing out as a delivered product, even if their suppliers need capital fast. Traditional financing allows them to meet their monetary obligations. With blockchain, McCarty hopes to make that process more transparent and secure.
“We’re really a full-stack custodian and digitization podium,” he said. “Because we have relationships with several financial institutions here in the United States as well as in Taiwan and in Hong Kong, we can offer as a global market.”
Trust company status would allow Aegis to custody U.S. investors “traditional assets” at current in while giving them opportunities in digitized trade finance abroad, he said.
McCarty told CoinDesk Aegis already has a “backlog” of customers waiting for the trust company to launch its U.S. business. He declined to reveal their identities ahead of the full charter rubber-stamp.