London-based multinational bank Standard Chartered PLC (STAN) has taken a significant step into the crypto world through its venture capital arm, SC Ventures. On Tuesday, it was disclosed that SC Ventures made an investment in GSR, aiming to broaden its digital asset services.
According to Bloomberg, SC Ventures invested approximately $150 million, valuing GSR at over $1 billion. This marks GSR’s first external stake since its 2013 founding by ex-Goldman Sachs traders. At the time of reporting, neither GSR nor SC Ventures provided comments in response to inquiries from CoinDesk.
GSR’s announcement highlighted that this investment is part of an extensive partnership designed to merge traditional finance with digital assets and enhance tokenization access.
“The rapid maturation of institutional digital asset markets favors firms that integrate robust capital market expertise with reliable banking infrastructure,” said Xin Son, CEO of GSR.
Both SC Ventures and GSR are focused on creating scalable infrastructures to meet the growing demand for regulated crypto services among institutions. Alex Manson, CEO at SC Ventures, emphasized, “The future digital asset landscape will be shaped by the robustness of its supporting infrastructure.”
Standard Chartered has been actively investing in digital assets recently. In January 2025, it launched digital asset custody services from Luxembourg and started offering crypto trading to institutional clients last summer, becoming one of the first global banks to provide spot bitcoin and ether trading. Moreover, Standard Chartered has reportedly considered acquiring Zodia Custody Ltd.
Earlier this year, GSR, which boasts over 300 liquidity partners and $1 trillion in trades since its inception, acquired Autonomous and Architech for $57 million. This acquisition is intended to significantly boost the firm’s tokenization services division.