UBS Bitcoin and Ether Trading Could Be an Eye for Ultra-Wealthy Clients
The world's largest wealth manager, UBS, is reportedly exploring moves to open up crypto trading to its wealthy clients.
Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing a person familiar with the matter, that the Swiss banking giant aims to allow private banking clients in Switzerland to trade Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) first, and may later move to the Asia-Pacific region and the US.
The person also said that UBS is currently selecting partners for its crypto offering, although the bank has not officially confirmed the details.
UBS already runs tokenization pilots like the uMINT tokenized US dollar money market fund on Ethereum and the Swift-UBS-Chainlink tokenized fund settlement trial, putting traditional fund products on the blockchain rails even before it plans to offer crypto trading.
UBS has stepped up its blockchain push in payments by partnering with Ant International to test real-time cross-border treasury flows using the Singapore-based UBS Digital Cash platform.
The pilot aims to enable Ant to move liquidity across the Alipay+ ecosystem in minutes, instead of days, by placing bank deposit requests on authorized ledgers.
Related: Bank of America Lets Wealth Advisors Recommend Bitcoin ETFs
Wall Street's last resort follows this
The Swiss group may be following US banking giant JPMorgan, which is exploring crypto trading for institutional clients and already uses the JPM Coin system for onchain wholesale and bond and asset management behemoths BlackRock and Fidelity.
Vanguard, one of Wall Street's most vocal crypto skeptics, became one of the last major positions to fold in December 2025 when it reversed its hard-line stance and allowed clients to trade crypto ETFs on its platform.
UBS manages $4.7 trillion in assets as of September 2025. If the crypto business moves forward, the bank will open a new in-house ramp for ultra-high-value portfolios.
Cointelegraph reached out to UBS for comment on the report on the private bank's cryptocurrency trading plans, but did not receive a response by press time.
Magazine: When Privacy and AML Laws Collide – The Impossible Choice of Crypto Projects
