DBS, the biggest bank in Singapore, has seen trading volume on its digital exchange skyrocket this year.
The value of digital payment tokens traded on DBS Digital Exchange in the first five months of 2024 tripled over the same period in 2023, in Singapore dollar terms, according to a press release shared with Decrypt. The number of active trading clients on the exchange grew by over a third (36%), while digital assets held by the platform were up 80% over the same period last year.
With professional investors "increasingly viewing digital assets as a legitimate part of their alternative portfolios," DBS Digital Exchange CEO Lim Wee Kian said that the platform plans to expand its suite of products for professional investors.
The firm is "studying listing stablecoins on our exchange and studying how to enable clients to earn rewards through Ethereum staking," he added.
Earlier this year, the bank stepped in to quash reports that it was an Ethereum whale, denying claims by blockchain analytics firm Nansen that it operated a wallet holding over $650 million in ETH.
Nevertheless, DBS has been something of an early adopter of crypto, launching its digital exchange in 2020, when many banks were blocking crypto transactions, and adding support for China's e-CNY central bank digital currency (CBDC) in 2023.
The bank's digital exchange serves institutional and accredited investors and claims to be the world's first full-service digital exchange backed by a bank.
DBS expanded its services to offer a crypto custody service in 2021.