BNY partners with Figment to add staking to digital asset custody

Figment, which oversees more than $18 billion in staked assets, announced the BNY custody arrangement on or around November 12, 2026. The deal brings validator-led staking to the bank’s existing Digital Asset Custody service.

Figment describes itself as a leading non-custodial staking provider. It serves more than 1,500 institutional clients across 30 protocols. At June 30, 2026, BNY managed approximately $62.6 trillion in assets under custody, the figure behind its description as the world’s largest custodian bank.

How do custody and validation stay separate?

Eligible institutions that already hold digital assets with BNY can stake supported assets through the bank’s custody platform. Figment runs the validators. BNY keeps the client assets in custody.

Proof-of-stake blockchains rely on holders locking up tokens to help validate transactions and receive rewards for that work. Under this setup, clients do not need to transfer their assets externally. Figment’s validators can perform that work while the underlying holdings remain with BNY.

The operational split is straightforward. BNY maintains the client relationship and the custody arrangement. Figment supplies specialized validator infrastructure without taking possession of client assets. Its non-custodial model lets it sit behind a bank rather than become another custodian.

For an eligible client, the end result is concrete: staking rewards can accrue on supported assets already held through BNY, without a separate transfer to an external provider. That removes a step that has often complicated institutional participation in proof-of-stake networks.

What does this change for institutional clients?

Figment said BNY’s target clients include:

• Asset managers
• Exchange-traded fund issuers
• Corporates
• Wealth-management firms

Eligible users will be able to collect staking rewards on supported assets kept on the platform. For an eligible ETF issuer, the benefit is operational rather than merely promotional. A fund holding supported proof-of-stake assets can capture rewards without moving holdings out of its existing custodian, simplifying the infrastructure around those assets.

For a pension-adjacent asset manager, the custody arrangement may be the deciding factor. The same structure gives asset managers and wealth-management firms a way to combine institutional custody with on-chain yield. Figment brings experience across more than 1,500 institutional clients and 30 protocols; BNY brings the custody footprint. The announcement did not name the supported assets or set out a client rollout schedule.

Why BNY is using two validator partners

The Figment agreement is BNY’s second staking partnership this year. In August 2026, the bank reached an agreement with Galaxy Digital to enhance staking capabilities on the same Digital Asset Custody platform. The second agreement of 2026 makes staking look less like an isolated trial than a repeatable service line.

Using both vendors gives BNY more than a wider menu of infrastructure. It reduces reliance on a single validator operator, a sensible approach when validator downtime or penalties can reduce rewards. The multi-vendor setup can also give the bank room to match validator services with different assets and client needs.

Neither partnership changes the basic division of responsibility described in the announcement. BNY holds the client assets. The named staking partner operates validation infrastructure. Rewards remain tied to staking supported assets and the performance of the relevant validators.

Where this fits in BNY’s digital asset expansion

The deal also sits within BNY’s wider work on tokenized deposits and European Union custody solutions regulated under MiCA, the bloc’s crypto regulatory framework. Together, those efforts make the bank a service point for institutional digital assets, not simply a passive store of tokens.

The commercial change is that BNY can offer a yield-linked service while outsourcing validator operations to specialist partners. Clients keep their assets with the custodian and gain access to staking through the same platform. That places staking inside a familiar institutional relationship.

The next test for this market structure is which supported assets and eligible institutions BNY activates. That rollout will determine whether validator-led staking becomes a broad product across BNY custody accounts or remains a selective offering.