Crypto World

Court closes Custodia fight with Federal Reserve just as Fed opens master-account door

Published

3 weeks ago

13 March 2026

Court closes Custodia fight with Federal Reserve just as Fed opens master-account door

A federal appeals court rejected the final bid of crypto bank Custodia to challenge the U.S. Federal Reserve’s authority over granting master accounts, but the decision arrives at a time that the central bank is opening other avenues for such accounts.

A Fed master account grants access to the central bank’s payment rails and full services, allowing an institution to cut out go-between arrangements, so it’s been coveted by emerging crypto banks like Wyoming-chartered Custodia Bank. The bank has been fighting with the Fed for years over the initial rejection of its master-account application, and later over whether the central bank should have the final word on whether or not to grant such access.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit revealed on Friday that it declined to hear Custodia’s final appeal on that point in a 7-3 vote. However, the latest in a string of legal defeats arrives as the Fed system has cracked a door open on master accounts for crypto firms.

First, a regional bank, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, recently granted crypto exchange Kraken a special new limited account. Though it’s not a full master account, it carries many of the same features, and Kraken is the first crypto firm to get one for its banking arm.

At the same time, the national-level Federal Reserve board is working on a new policy to welcome crypto firms and others into so-called “skinny” master accounts that would likely be similar to Kansas City’s approach. That process is still in the early stages, so it’s unclear when crypto banks can begin applying.

Custodia representatives didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday’s court decision. A person familiar with its efforts said Friday that the bank is still pursuing access.

In a dissent opinion circulated by the court, one of the judges argued for why the rehearing should have been granted. “Holding that the Reserve Banks have unreviewable discretion over master accounts places us on the wrong side of the statutes and, likely, that of the Constitution as well,” wrote Judge Timothy Tymkovich. “The case’s consequences for the financial industry and its impact on the state-federal balance in banking regulation make it exceptionally important.”

The Kraken success spurred analysts to predict other crypto names may soon join them on the rolls of firms with master accounts, but some who’ve followed the years-long battle say it’ll be slow going and dependent on which region of the reserve-bank system they’re in. The real rush of approvals may wait for the Fed to establish a nationwide approach to limited accounts.

Source link

Crypto World

Altura Launches Onchain Gold Arbitrage Vault for Retail Users

Published

2 minutes ago

3 April 2026

NewsAdmin

Altura Launches Onchain Gold Arbitrage Vault for Retail Users

Altura, a decentralized finance protocol founded by former Fidelity and PwC staff is launching an onchain gold arbitrage strategy aimed at retail investors, targeting 20% annualized returns, according to a Thursday release shared with Cointelegraph.

According to Altura, the product pools user deposits into a vault that recycles capital through short-duration physical gold trades. Unlike platforms like Robinhood or Revolut that offer passive gold price exposure, Altura claims to be tokenizing the underlying arbitrage process itself.

The company says it has raised $4 million in funding and has already facilitated the movement of about 185 kilograms of gold, representing roughly $28.5 million in cumulative transaction volume, per the release.

Matthew Pinnock, co-founder and chief operating officer of Altura, told Cointelegraph the goal is to “bring an institutional-style gold strategy onchain in a way that retail investors can actually access.”

The launch comes as spot gold trades near record levels after surging to an all-time high above $5,300 an ounce in January, though it has since pulled back sharply. Altura’s launch points to a new phase in tokenized real-world assets, where projects are no longer just offering passive exposure to commodities but are trying to package institutional trading strategies as onchain DeFi yield products for retail users.

A strategy typically reserved for institutional traders

Pinnock said Altura’s “revenue-generating trading strategy” was historically used by institutional commodities desks, and that high capital requirements, legal complexity and counterparty risk in traditional bullion arbitrage have effectively kept smaller investors out of this type of trade.

*Gold price over the last 12 months. Source:* *Trading Economics*

Gold purchased on behalf of Altura by its trading partner Inessa is tokenized at acquisition, Pinnock said, with those tokens escrowed through each trade and custody transitions recorded via dual cryptographic signatures. Depositors do not hold direct title to bullion but gain exposure to returns generated by the trade flow, he added.

Altura’s setup depends on a network of offchain actors. The company says it is working with Aurellion Labs and Inessa, which in turn partners with air-cargo specialist Zeal Global, to execute and verify trades.

On the targeted 20% yields, Pinnock said the strategy is structured to be “close to delta-neutral,” with trade terms agreed before logistics execution begins so that returns come from price discrepancies between counterparties rather than directional bets on the gold price.

Each arbitrage cycle typically completes within one to two days, allowing capital to be recycled multiple times and limiting exposure to spot moves, he said, while acknowledging that yields would compress if pricing inefficiencies narrow.

Rising interest in real-world yields

The launch comes amid rising interest in “real-world” DeFi yields, as tokenized asset and RWA protocols grew to roughly $17 billion in total value locked in December 2025, according to DefiLlama data.

However, a joint report by RWA.io and Veritas Protocol in that same month found that losses from onchain operational failures in tokenized RWA markets rose to $14.6 million in the first half of 2025, a 143% increase from the previous year, highlighting how complex offchain structures can still translate into user losses.

Magazine: Bitcoin’s ‘biggest bull catalyst’ would be Saylor’s liquidation — Santiment founder