Crypto Startup Avanti Receives License To Operate as National Bank in Wyoming – Bitcoin News

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Crypto Startup Avanti Receives License To Operate as National Bank in Wyoming

Crypto startup Avanti Financial Group has been granted a license to offer banking services by the Wyoming State Banking Board.

The license, or bank charter, means Avanti can now operate as a conventional bank – but one with a twist, capable of holding both crypto and dollars. It plans to launch in 2021.

According to a statement published Oct. 28, the firm will also now be able to take custody of crypto assets like bitcoin while its plan for the creation of Avit, a tokenized US dollar, has been given the go ahead.

The company’s application for a bank charter was accepted in July, reports The Block. Avanti is the second crypto firm to become a bank after Kraken Financial, a unit of U.S. crypto exchange Kraken.

Avanti founder and chief executive officer, Caitlin Long, said “currently the only type of U.S. financial institution that can provide final and simultaneous settlement of trades between digital assets and the U.S. dollar is a Wyoming special purpose depository institution like Avanti.”

Avanti plans to issue Avit initially on both Liquid – a sidechain of the Bitcoin blockchain – and Ethereum. The company claims its tokenized U.S. dollar is “designed to solve the legal, accounting and tax issues of stablecoins.”

As a bank, Avanti will be required to fully comply with the Bank Secrecy Act, anti-money laundering and OFAC-related laws, rules and regulations.

Tags in this story
anti-money laundering, Avanti Financial Group, Avit, Bank Secrecy Act, Caitlin Long, Crypto-Bank, Kraken Financial, Wyoming State Banking Board

What do you think about Avanti gaining a bank charter? Let us know in the comments section below.

Jeffrey Gogo

Jeffrey Gogo is an award winning financial journalist based in Harare, Zimbabwe. A former deputy business editor with the Zimbabwe Herald, the country's biggest daily, Gogo has more than 17 years of wide-ranging experience covering Zimbabwe's financial markets, economy and company news. He first encountered bitcoin in 2014, and began covering cryptocurrency markets in 2017

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