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Leverage & Scale · Custody · Founded 2017 · Active

Anchorage Digital

Anchorage Digital is a Bitcoin company in the Custody category, founded in 2017 by Diogo Monica, Nathan McCauley.

The Idea

Institutional digital asset custody built by security engineers. Monica and McCauley realized in 2017 that the expanding digital asset ecosystem needed solutions for cryptographic key management, their specialty as the security leads at Docker, the widely used software-container platform.

Early Traction

Well before the charter, Anchorage had real traction. It launched institutional custody in 2019, raised a $40M Series B led by Blockchain Capital with a strategic investment from Visa, signed on institutional clients like Polychain, Paradigm, and a16z, and was a founding member of Facebook's Libra Association. In 2021, it became the first federally chartered digital asset bank in the United States (OCC charter).

Peak Stats

$4.2B valuation (2026). First federally chartered digital asset bank. Clients include major institutional investors and asset managers.

Status Today

The first federally chartered digital asset bank in the U.S. A February 2026 Tether investment of $100M valued the company at $4.2B.

Why It Matters

Anchorage represents additional 'institutional plumbing' for the largest investors in the world. Being the first to receive a federal bank charter was a milestone for the entire industry.

Investors on this list

Blockchain Capital, a16z crypto

Cite & share

Early Riders. “The 50 Most Interesting Companies in Bitcoin’s History: Anchorage Digital.” https://earlyriders.com/top50/anchorage-digital/

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