This past week saw some major, yet relatively quiet, developments by Wall Street making major moves into the crypto market. Citi Bank has announced institutional Bitcoin custody, Morgan Stanley has told clients it plans to operate as a “crypto bank” and Goldman Sachs has filed for a Bitcoin Premium Income ETF. Shortly prior to this, Charles Schwab announced it will offer crypto trading later this quarter through Schwab Crypto.
Regime shift
Bitcoin analyst Joe Consorti framed Goldman’s April 14 ETF filing as a regime shift in a video titled “Goldman Just Pointed $144 Trillion at Bitcoin.” Consorti argued the industry has moved from “Phase One,” where banks rubber-stamped basic spot ETFs, to “Phase Two,” where they package bitcoin exposure into volatility-dampened, yield-generating products. That shift, he said, effectively “opens the $144 trillion US wealth advisor channel to Bitcoin for the first time.”
Mastercard embraces this shift
Meanwhile, traditional payment giant Mastercard is set to acquire crypto stablecoin infrastructure firm BVNK in a deal worth up to around $1.8 billion, pushing deeper into crypto rails and 24/7 payments. Why is it doing this? To adapt to remain relevant as traditional finance rapidly moves onto the blockchain, fundamentally changing the way money moves. In 2025, crypto stablecoins processed $33 trillion in on-chain transaction volume — surpassing the combined $25.5 trillion handled by Visa and Mastercard combined. Mastercard is now playing catch-up.
In a statement, Mastercard Chief Product Officer Jorn Lambert said Mastercard expects traditional financial firms and fintechs alike to adopt stablecoins and tokenized deposits. “By purchasing BVNK, Mastercard aims to bolster that shift,” he said.
Ethereum leads in monumental shift
The majority of stablecoin transactions occurr on the Ethereum blockchain, which almost processed more stablecoin transactions in terms of volume in the fourth quarter of 2025 than Mastercard processed in the entire year. Moreover, the Ethereum blockchain ecosystem now holds some US$165 billion in stablecoin reserves, positioning itself among the world’s highest, exceeding some national reserve pools of major nation-states – including Singapore and India.
It is clear that Wall Street’s recent push into crypto and blockchain is not a speculative bet –rather a strategic adaptive decision reflective of a monumental shift in finance.