Anchorage adds support for staking of SPL-based tokens

Crypto custody provider Anchorage Digital is expanding its services to include custody and staking support for Solana-based tokens.

Anchorage Digital Bank, a federally chartered crypto bank in the United States, is expanding its offerings with custody and staking support for the Solana ecosystem. In an announcement on August 6, the custodian said it will now support Solana-based tokens in the SPL standard, in addition to its existing services for Solana’s (SOL) native token.

Nathan McCauley, co-founder of Anchorage Digital, emphasized that the decision was driven by increasing enterprise demand for “safe and secure access to leading networks like Solana.”

Founded in 2017 by Nathan McCauley, Diogo Monica, and Boaz Avital, Anchorage Digital Bank is a crypto custodian backed by investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Blockchain Capital, and Oaktree Capital Management. In early 2022, the custodian raised $80 million in a Series C funding round led by a16z.

More Solana-based tokens for institutions

Anchorage Digital’s latest service expansion aims to “meet the growing institutional demand” for access to the Solana ecosystem, the custodian said, adding that it is initially adding SOL custody support in 2022 and staking support in 2023.

The SPL standard allows initiatives on the Solana network to issue their own tokens that can be integrated into various scenarios on the network, including decentralized applications, tokenization, payments, and governance. Similar to Ethereum’s ERC-20 and TRON’s TRC-20 standards, the SPL standard is designed to improve the usability of protocols on the Solana network.

The announcement coincides with Solana’s recent market activity, where it temporarily overtook Binance Coin (BNB) to become the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization before dropping back to fifth place. Additionally, as crypto.news previously reported, Solana surpassed Ethereum in on-chain trading activity on decentralized exchanges in July, reaching $55.8 billion in trading volume.