Avanti Bank & Trust has been granted a bank charter by the Wyoming State Banking Board today following a unanimous vote, per an announcement from the company.“Avanti’s mission is to provide a compliant bridge between the traditional and digital asset financial systems, with the strictest level of institutional custody standards,” said Caitlin Long, Avanti’s founder and chief executive officer who has led blockchain advocacy efforts in Wyoming, in the announcement. “We will provide products and services that do not exist in the market today. Currently the only type of U.S. financial institution that can provide final and simultaneous settlement of trades between digital assets and the U.S. dollar — because it is the only type currently approved to handle both within the same legal entity — is a Wyoming special purpose depository institution like Avanti. Wyoming has the only U.S. regulator with a bank supervisory and regulatory program for digital assets that is near completion.”This approval follows a similar green light for Kraken, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, which received approval from the State of Wyoming to carry out some of the functions of a private bank in September 2020.Avanti has approval to issue a tokenized U.S. dollar called avit, which it plans to launch on the Bitcoin sidechain Liquid, as well as Ethereum. It’s unclear if or when it will support products directly connected to Bitcoin.
