VersaBank is moving towards launching a blockchain-based virtual vault to store digital properties such as cryptocurrency.
The London, Ont.-based chartered bank says its subsidiary VersaVault has signed two memorandums of understanding with a cryptocurrency exchange and a cryptocurrency-based fund.
VersaBank did not disclose the names of the exchange or the fund.
The branchless bank says these agreements will facilitate feedback from two institutional holders of cryptocurrency assets to help guide the bank’s development of VersaVault, which it intends to launch globally.
VersaBank says the blockchain-based vault works like a safety deposit box, where only the user has access or knows what is inside but its contents are protected from hackers and other risks.
One recent example of such risk is a January cyberattack on Tokyo-based bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck, which lost hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency to hackers.