Big banks have spent years trying to decide whether to touch crypto. This week, two of the biggest just put money behind it.
Deutsche Bank and Nasdaq Ventures both joined a $120 million Series D round for Elliptic, a London-based blockchain data firm.
One Peak led the round. The British Business Bank also chipped in.
The deal values Elliptic at $670 million.
Crypto has a rule-keeping problem. Nearly $3 billion in coins has been stolen since the start of 2025.
That is a giant red flag for any bank or exchange that wants to handle digital assets at scale.
Elliptic builds the tool that screens crypto trades for risk. It tracks more than 65 blockchains.
Today it sifts through more than 1 billion trades a week for 700-plus clients in 30 countries.
About two-thirds of all global crypto trading volume flows through exchanges that already rely on Elliptic.
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Banks do not usually back crypto-native startups directly. The fact that Deutsche Bank and Nasdaq's venture arm both showed up is the bigger story.
Sabih Behzad, Deutsche Bank's global head of digital assets, said the firm is putting money into the rails that keep digital asset markets safe.
Gary Offner at Nasdaq Ventures said firms need trusted back-end tools to handle risk at scale.
In plain English: they want the picks-and-shovels of crypto, not the coins.
Stablecoins - digital tokens pegged to the U.S. dollar - moved $33 trillion in trades in 2025. That is too much for banks to ignore.
Elliptic plans to use the new cash to grow its AI-driven tools. It has been collecting on-chain data since 2013, which gives it a head start.
Elliptic is not alone in the space. Chainalysis and TRM Labs are both playing in the same lane.
What sets Elliptic apart, per One Peak's Humbert de Liedekerke Beaufort, is its data depth and how it powers the firm's AI tools.
He pointed to user feedback as the main reason One Peak led the round.
Past backers JPMorgan, AlbionVC, and Evolution Equity Partners also stayed in.
The fresh cash will fund new tools to track risk in real time. Elliptic's footprint already spans London, New York, Washington D.C., Miami, Dubai, Singapore, and Tokyo.
The pitch to banks is simple. If you want in on crypto, you need a way to see who is on the other side of the trade.
The next test is whether banks really start moving stablecoin and tokenized-asset traffic onto Elliptic's rails. Most of the volume still sits on crypto-native exchanges.
If Deutsche Bank, Nasdaq, and JPMorgan are all-in on Elliptic, that pipeline could open fast.
Crypto's biggest unlock is not going to be a new token. It is going to be the plumbing big banks trust enough to use.
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