Custody is not glamorous work. Settling securities transactions, safekeeping customer assets and collecting entitlements owed to the owners of those assets cannot compare, in terms of column inches and personal rewards, with mergers and acquisitions or the trading floor. Yet custodians have emerged, ironically in an industry created specifically to bypass intermediaries, as the single most important guarantors of investment and trading activity in the cryptocurrency markets.

The growing interest of institutional investors in cryptocurrencies is allied to rising demand for yield on cryptocurrency investments. This necessitates active management, which creates challenges. Neither Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) nor conventional mutual funds issued under the Investment Company Act of 1940 (’40 Act funds) can accommodate actively traded cryptocurrency funds.