PNC Bank has officially launched direct spot Bitcoin trading for eligible private banking customers, becoming the first major United States financial institution to enable buy, hold and sell functions inside its own digital platform. The initiative marks a significant expansion of regulated crypto access for wealthy clients and represents the first phase of PNC’s partnership with Coinbase.
Announced on Tuesday, the rollout is powered by Coinbase’s Crypto as a Service infrastructure, which handles trading and custody operations on behalf of partner banks. This collaboration was first revealed in July and is designed to bring institutional grade crypto capabilities to PNC’s digital ecosystem.
PNC Private Bank serves high net worth and ultra high net worth clients, including business owners, families and family offices. The bank said it plans to gradually expand access to additional customer segments while introducing more digital asset features over time.
According to Federal Reserve data, PNC Bank ranks as the eighth largest commercial bank in the country. It manages about 564 billion dollars in assets and operates more than 2,300 branches across the United States.
PNC Bank joins a broader trend among major US banks
While several major banks in the United States have entered the crypto market this year, most have limited their offerings to custody services or indirect investment products such as exchange traded funds. For example, Bank of America announced on December 2 that it will allow its wealth management clients to access four Bitcoin ETFs beginning next year. These ETFs are issued by Bitwise, Fidelity, Grayscale and BlackRock, and provide investors with regulated Bitcoin exposure without requiring direct digital asset ownership.
This makes PNC Bank one of the first large financial institutions to enable direct spot Bitcoin trading inside its own platform rather than pushing users toward third party investment products.
Demand from wealthy investors is rising quickly. Across Asia, especially in Hong Kong, mainland China and Singapore, wealth managers report increasing interest from high net worth clients who intend to allocate around five percent of their portfolios to crypto. New digital asset funds in these markets are also attracting strong inflows.
In the United States, asset managers and crypto firms are expanding their services to meet this demand. JPMorgan said in June that it would allow trading and wealth management clients to use crypto ETFs as loan collateral. The bank also started factoring digital asset holdings into client net worth evaluations.
Binance has introduced a concierge style offering for family offices, private funds and asset managers entering the crypto space. Meanwhile, a Zerohash survey conducted in November found that 35 percent of US investors aged 18 to 40 moved assets away from advisers who did not offer cryptocurrency access.
Conclusion
The move by PNC Bank signals a major shift in how traditional US financial institutions are approaching digital assets. By integrating direct spot Bitcoin trading into its platform, the bank is positioning itself to compete in a market where wealthy clients increasingly expect regulated and seamless crypto services. As more banks evaluate similar offerings, direct digital asset access may soon become a standard feature of private banking in the United States.
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