The U.S. could trigger the next global surge in cryptocurrency adoption as regulators move toward clearer rules for banks and financial institutions, according to Alessio Quaglini, CEO & Co-founder, of Hong Kong-based digital asset custodian Hex Trust.
“Give it a few months, every single bank in the U.S. will provide custody services for Bitcoin BTC/USD,” Alessio said in an interview with Benzinga.
“That’s when we’ll have real adoption—when banks start offering Bitcoin deposits, trading, and even structured products.”
His comments come as Washington signals greater openness to crypto integration. Alessio said banks globally have run pilots with digital assets but avoided going live because U.S. regulators hadn’t accepted it. “The perception of Bitcoin is already there,” he said. “The bottleneck has always been regulation.”
Stablecoins may prove just as transformative, Alessio added, predicting they will replace the SWIFT system for cross-border transfers. “Stablecoins are programmable money,” he said. “They’re faster, cheaper, and will disrupt remittances. Western Union and similar players should be worried.”
Hex Trust, founded in 2018, provides custody, staking, trading, and lending services for institutions. It operates under licenses in Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai and Europe.
Revenues are projected to reach $20 million in 2025, with ambitions to scale into the hundreds of millions and eventually pursue an IPO. “We want to be the J.P. Morgan of Asia in crypto,” Alessio said.
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The firm started with $300,000 in seed capital—$50,000 from Alessio himself—and secured a $6 million Series A in 2021. It now counts over 200 staff and more than a million end-users through institutional partnerships.
The push comes as publicly traded peers like Coinbase Global Inc. and Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd. are under pressure to diversify revenue streams amid volatile trading volumes.
Coinbase, with a market cap near $50 billion, generated most of its revenue from retail trading fees, while Galaxy reported net income of $422 million in the second quarter, fueled largely by proprietary trading.
Alessio said Hex Trust’s strategy is deliberately focused on custody and institutional services to avoid volatility.
Alessio, a former banker, first bought Bitcoin in 2014 at around $280. “I sold some and bought a house in Japan—that’s where I met my wife,” he said.
Today, he views the market as increasingly institutional, citing the shift of large Bitcoin holdings from early investors to asset managers and banks. “These are long-term players, like central banks with gold. They accumulate strategically,” he said.
“The rules of the U.S. are global rules,” Alessio said. “Once American banks move, the rest of the world will follow. That’s when Bitcoin truly becomes mainstream.”
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