Banks have safeguarded money and the things people value for hundreds of years. Bitcoin is money that needs exactly what banks have always provided: safekeeping, credit, payments, and honest records. So far most institutions have watched from the sidelines while customers buy Bitcoin anyway and the deposits that pay for it leave for exchanges. The institutions that move first get the other side of that trade: the deposits stay, the fee income is new, and the customer relationship deepens. A bank that takes Bitcoin seriously is doing its oldest job for the newest kind of money.

Secured lending is what banks do best: extend credit against collateral, price the risk, and watch the position. Bitcoin suits that craft unusually well. It is priced continuously against a market that never closes, it can be moved in minutes rather than repossessed over months, and the lender can observe it 24/7. That changes what a margin policy can be. The loan-to-value ratio is a live number, the margin call price is known in advance, and the liquidation path does not require a court.

None of this is a new kind of lending. It is the same secured credit banks have always written, against collateral built for the discipline.

In 2019, a surf town in El Salvador began experimenting with Bitcoin as everyday money. Nicolas Burtey read about it, traveled to El Zonte, and started building for the community: the Bitcoin Beach Wallet, a mobile app the town used to hold and spend Bitcoin. That work grew into Blink, and into open-source infrastructure now run by communities in other countries; the story is told in Bitcoin Banking for Communities. It also left us with the question this company exists to answer: what does a bank look like when Bitcoin is native to the core?

Galoy is custody-independent by design. The bank chooses its qualified custodian, or custodies directly, and Galoy is the banking and application layer above that choice. The integration layer is built for more than one custodian at a time, so a bank can split custody or change it without touching the core. We do not bundle custody and we do not hold an opinion about whose custody a bank should use.

The practical consequence is that a custody decision and a core decision stop being the same decision. A bank can change one without unwinding the other.

OCC Interpretive Letter 1186 confirmed that banks may hold limited digital assets to pay network fees. Interpretive Letter 1188 addressed riskless principal transactions. The Federal Reserve ended its Novel Activities Supervision Program and folded that work into standard examination. The GENIUS Act established a federal stablecoin framework with insured depositories among the permitted issuers.

We build to the guidance that exists and we cite it where it applies. We do not forecast what regulators will do next.