Opening Remarks and From Vaults to Smart Contracts: Why Custody Is TradFi's Gateway to Digital Assets

Institutional adoption of digital assets hinges on one foundational capability: secure custody. For traditional financial institutions, custody is more than just safekeeping—it is the key to enabling new services, building client trust, and capturing emerging revenue streams in tokenization, digital trading, and beyond. This session unpacks the strategic imperative for TradFi players to move into on-chain custody, the market forces driving demand, and how established players can leverage their trust advantage to compete in this rapidly growing space.