Seba Bank, an institutional-grade, certified, and independently audited hot and cold storage custody product for blue-chip NFTs, has launched its first NFT service.
The deployment is in response to client requests to keep their NFTs alongside other crypto assets, such as Bored Ape Yacht Club, Cryptopunk, and Clone X NFTs, which have already been approved.
According to the bank, new collections will be offered based on consumer demand.
With this latest product, Seba Bank intends to appeal to both investors who consider NFTs as an asset class and crypto natives.
There’s a widespread adage in crypto: “not your keys, not your bitcoin,” and individuals who follow this motto may object to entrusting their Apes or Punks to a third-party custodian.
However, Urs Bernegger, co-head of markets and investment solutions at Seba Bank, sees a rising group of NFT holders who are more comfortable giving NFTs and private keys to a financial institution.
According to Chainalysis, between 2.3 million and 3.7 million bitcoin are locked in inaccessible wallets. There are several stories of people who have lost millions of dollars owing to the loss of private keys, ranging from Russian officials to students to engineers.
Sudden deaths in which wallet owners did not release their private keys have also prevented families from accessing life-changing sums of money.
Bernegger thinks institutional custody can also help crypto natives. There has been an increase in the number of organizations providing services in which NFTs are used as collateral for traditional banking services such as lending.
The four-year-old bank, based in the crypto-friendly Swiss town of Zug, already supports a variety of investing, credit, lending, and staking solutions for cryptocurrencies and may extend them to NFTs.
